GREGORY J. REID
In his unassuming, modestly presented (8'x10', paperback) monograph, Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre, Alan Filewod overcomes the challenging incongruities between postmodern theory and the particularities of Canadian theatre history with an argument that is imaginative yet convincing and rigorous yet elegantly styled. Despite its brevity, Performing Canada is a history of Canadian theatre from Marc Lescabot's The Theatre of Neptune in New France in 1606 to Garth Drabinsky's controversial production of Show Boat in Toronto in 1993, with reflective essays on the 19th century history dramas of Charles Mair and Sarah Anne Curzon, on Vincent Massey and the establishment of the epitome of the high-brow mainstream in Canada, the Stratford Festival, in 1953, and on "alternative" theatre as exemplified by Chris Brookes' Mummers Troupe in the 1970's in Newfoundland and their production of They Club Seals, Don't They?
As his title indicates, Filewod takes Benedict Anderson's notion of the nation as an "imagined community" a step further and argues that in the Canadian context the theatre, a medium through which the community might imagine itself, is itself imagined. An "imagined theatre" is not without precedents. Filewod concludes his discussion of The Farm Show as "an epochal production" which "very few people actually saw" (9) and Charles Mair's imagining of "the theatre that ought to do Tecumseh" with the insightful paradox that a play need not be written in order to be influential:
[...] it may be useful to recall the example of Antonin Artaud, whose powerful arguments for a theatre of cruelty rest on his jotted notes for plays that were never written nor performed but which played feverishly in his mind. The plays he didn't write are among the most important in modern theatre. (10)
For those of us who teach Canadian Theatre, the idea that a play might be influential despite a limited reception is a valuable insight.
Moreover, Performing Canada offers a long-awaited anatomy of the field. Filewod "explains" Canadian theatre in a compelling fashion that connects it with historical narratives and provocative current events. His theoretical framework includes such concepts as "surrogation" and "mythic authenticities," as well as "imagined theatres" and "enacted nations," which not only work extremely well in the present context but provide encouraging groundwork for further research.
In addition to offering a succinct history and anatomy of Canadian theatre, Performing Canada also responds to the objectives of the "Critical Performance/s in Canada" series, going "beyond the traditional parameters" (vii) of theatre research and reminding us "that 'any event, action, item or behavior may be examined as performance'" (ix). Once the structure of Filewod's argument has taken hold, it becomes impossible not to re-imagine its reapplication to the many "performances" of daily life which are "enactments" of a role or concept, according to how the institutions within which lives and careers are carried out are "imagined." In addition, Filewod's book is itself a performance full of highlights and headlines, portraits and posters, photographs and facsimiles, and drawings and cartoons that are in turn the remnants, the tangible forensic evidence, of the performances under study.
Filewod's engaging mix of forthrightness and sophistication is most sharply displayed, in his final chapter, with his poignant description of attending Canada Day festivities, which becomes a springboard for his incisive observations on the historical use of spectacle in the promotion of nationalism.
We watched the display with pleasure and, at times, wonder. Immense speakers pumped out recordings of The Tragically Hip, kids waved Canadian flags and yelled 'Bonne Fête Canada!' and my six-year-old son looked up at the pyrotechnics and whispered, 'This is awesome.'
'Awesome' is a major word in the vocabulary of a six year old, but in this case I was struck by the realization that he was absolutely correct: it was awesome. This was the state (the city, the Rotarians, the nation assembled) dazzling its citizens in a performance of surpassing wonder. We were as dumbfounded by marvel as Vasari's compatriots were in Florence five hundred years ago and by a technology that hasn't changed very much in the interim. The evocation of awe is one of the principal means by which states command the emotional allegiance of their constituents. A fête at Versailles, a masque at a colonial outpost, a pyrotechnic spectacle, a military parade, a floodlit rally: these are the familiar spectacles of emotive manipulation that remind us of the performative mechanisms of nationhood. (101-02).