JESSICA GARDINER
There is an argument among community theatre practitioners that goes something like this. If the same resources were available to community/amateur theatres as are available to professional theatres, there would be no qualitative difference in the nature of their performances. Indeed, many community theatre companies believe their performances to lack only the critical esteem afforded to those of the professional theatre. They believe that they are marginalized by critics because their performances are prejudged, tainted by the negative connotations of leisure and facility associated with the term amateur. Amateur theatre practitioners, they would argue, participate in the theatre for the sheer love of it. They are not paid like their professional counterparts, but have chosen the security of regular wages in the business world while confining their creative passions to a limited number of hours each evening. Certainly it is the contention of Iris Winston's Staging a Legend: A History of Ottawa Little Theatre that the Ottawa Little Theatre (OLT) provides quality performances which have benefited from, and survived for eighty-four years because of, this arrangement. Furthermore, while living in the shadow of such professional giants as the National Arts Centre and the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the OLT, Staging a Legend argues, by traditionally offering a season of Broadway and West End favourites, consistently pleases its subscribers to such an extent that it never fails to balance its books, an accomplishment its professional counterparts are not always able to achieve. In other words, the OLT, an amateur company, conducts the business of theatre more successfully than its professional rivals. However, Winston shows, that due to a fear of losing its subscriber base, the OLT avoids challenging or difficult material; and, it is for this reason that the OLT rarely presents the work of Canadian playwrights.
Perhaps it is both suitable and ironic, considering the OLT's current choice of repertoire, its location in the heart of the nation's capital, and its pride in its economic autonomy, that it was playwright/director Harley Granville-Barker who presided over the newly formed Ottawa Drama League's (ODL) opening ceremony at the Victoria Memorial Museum in l915. After all, it was the same Harley Granville-Barker who, along with London drama critic William Archer, championed the cause for a subsidized British national theatre in the influential A National Theatre: Schemes and Estimates (1907). A British National Theatre, they argued, should perform British and European classics, as well as cultivate new works by British playwrights. London should serve as the centre from which the very best of British culture would germinate and sow its seeds throughout the Commonwealth. One wonders how influential Granville-Barker's privileging of a British repertoire was to the newly formed Ottawa Drama League. Certainly it was influential in determining policy for the Southbank Complex in London, and arguably the National Arts Centre in Ottawa which in early years favoured a mix of European classic and native drama. In 1915, with residences in both Paris and the United States, Granville-Barker spent his time writing his Prefaces To Shakespeare (1927-1947), and occasionally filled his days lecturing and adjudicating at theatres throughout the United States and Canada, including the ODL and the Dominion Drama Festival (DDF). To be fair to Granville-Barker, while he was reluctant to adjudicate at the DDF, he was excited by their desire to encourage a native drama claiming, "The drama is in a happy position in Canada [...] It has such strong supporters!" (Lee, Betty. Love and Whisky: The Story of the Dominion Drama Festival . Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973. 223). Nonetheless, his very presence at the Festival, as a British adjudicator and authority on drama, affirmed a hierarchy that placed the determinants of quality outside of Canada. It is a bias that seems to have remained with the Ottawa Little Theatre to this day.
However, in 1933, with the formation of the DDF, the ODL did attempt to re-negotiate its relationship with the British drama. With Vere Brabazon Ponsonby, First Earl of Bessborough, then Governor General of Canada, as patron, former Prime Minister Robert Borden as president, and Vincent Massey as chairman, the DDF was envisaged as a festival that would provide its patrons with truly Canadian content. "I should like to see as a normal part of our life in this country, dramatic performances taking place of plays by Canadian authors and music by Canadian composers, with scenic decoration and costumes by Canadian players," claimed Bessborough (30). In addition to providing encouragement for Canadian talent, the DDF was conceived in an attempt to recognize the achievements of "little theatres" across Canada. It was decided that the ODL should host the festival for the first five years, partially in appreciation of the ODL's newly built theatre on the corner of King Edward and Besserer Streets, and partially because of Lord Bessborough's involvement with the group as a set designer. His son was an actor with the group. While the ODL's main stage season remained primarily British in content between 1933 and 1937, its close affiliation with the DDF allowed it to encourage Canadian playwriting in what was a highly prestigious forum.
By l938, the Ottawa Drama League (renamed the Ottawa Little Theatre in 1951) was no longer the resident house of the DDF; however, they continued to encourage new Canadian plays each year through their annual one-act playwriting festival. These plays were not produced on the main stage. Paradoxically, while offering encouragement to Canadian playwrights in this form, a typical subscription season that is comprised primarily of British and American imports that can best be described as safe and proven crowd pleasers. Consider the 1997/98 season as a case in point: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Shevelove, Gelhart, Sondheim), Tea and Sympathy (Anderson), My Three Angels (Spewack, Spewack), The Heiress (Goetz, Goetz), My Giddy Aunt (Cooney, Chapman), The Middle Ages (Gurney), The Trip to Bountiful (Foote), and Don't Dress for Dinner (Camoletti). Former president Jane Murray, who was until recently responsible for supervising the selection of the OLT season defends her choices in this manner: "If you come down here for a few years, you'll be able to talk about the plays that are being written and talked about in the theatre centres like New York and London" (70). Are they? Certainly, they are not the plays being written and talked about in the English-speaking world's third largest theatre centre--Toronto. Furthermore, Murray argues that she and subsequent presidents have a clear mandate to please their audiences. And while past president Sybil Cooke claims "There is a strong argument for more Canadian plays and we try to include one every season, but it doesn't always work out," the inference here, of course, is that plays written outside Canada are better in quality, more entertaining, and consequently, more lucrative (72).
Framed by a dedication from Governor-General and patron Romeo Leblanc, and the Ottawa Drama League's inaugural dedicatory poem by poet Duncan Campbell Scott, Winston's history chronicles the eighty-four year history of OLT from its beginnings as a branch of America's Drama League, to its present incarnation as the Ottawa Little Theatre located in its impressive purpose-built facilities on King Edward Street. It was on this location, but in its former space, a converted Methodist church, that the OLT introduced the first acting classes to the city. And it was on this location in the 1960's that a smaller more intimate space was created in the basement. This enabled the OLT to offer its patrons a choice of two seasons: either a collection of popular works, or a season of more experimental and difficult works. But the latter failed to sell, and was discontinued.
In 1970, when the OLT's theatre was once more the victim of fire (the Victoria Museum Theatre was also destroyed by fire), President Jane Murray and members engaged in an ambitious fund-raising campaign to rebuild the theatre. Rebuilt solely through private donations, the OLT remains proudly debt-free to this day. However, the new theatre is a costly venture to maintain, and the company is left little margin for financial loss. For this reason, they are wary of dramatic experimentation.
While Winston's history is an informative and entertaining read, in certain aspects it is not satisfying. It seems to skim the surface of this unique institution's rich history and leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Understandably, with two fires destroying valuable archives and documents, research material may well be limited; nonetheless, one is frequently left with questions about the projected readership of this text. While Winston does allude to the criticism levelled at the OLT by critics concerned with repertoire choice it is all handled in a conciliatory fashion. Furthermore, the text is liberally peppered with compliments to the OLT's resilience, endeavour, and ability to create an atmosphere of fun and "magic." In fact, Winston's book reads like a history intended for the OLT membership.
For over fifteen years I was a member. At age seven, I took my first acting classes in the church basement, performed in both the church and the new theatre, as well as for the associate Ottawa Children's Theatre. For me, and for many of those who spent their leisure hours at the OLT, Winston's book rekindles many fond memories. As a history of our years there, Staging a Legend fills a void. But, as a scholar, I am left convinced that a history of the OLT's contribution to Canada's community theatre is an intriguing and worthy exercise that has yet to be fully realized.
Staging a Legend does not provide in any systematic fashion an analysis of the assumptions and biases imbedded in the OLT's mandate and practice other than the continual reiteration that members are dedicated to providing pleasure to their audience and to balancing their books. I am convinced that many of our attitudes and practices in Canadian theatre today, both in professional and amateur companies, have been influenced by and mediated through the attitudes and practices of community theatres such as the OLT. For years many of our community theatres served as training ground for hopeful theatre professionals. In some parts of Canada they still do. What is the nature of their contribution? And more importantly, what should community theatre's obligation be to its audience--merely the purveyor of pleasure or cultural envoy?