TOM HENDRY
Mapping a Mythology
Oh dear, it's all coming back! Reading Denis Johnston's fine book-which I've done a couple of times now, it's that interesting-brought a flood of red-ink memories and an agony of anxiety I've been missing for the last twenty years: recollections of second mortgages taken on my house to get the theatre ready for its opening or because the fire marshal had dropped in with a few helpful hints; heady days of economic disorder turned dazzling because the work was promising; weary weeks of the dreary dismals when the plays stopped turning up, when we realized that everybody-including ourselves-was writing for King of Kensington, or something like it, to pay off some of the debts of stress and struggle, theatrical sturm und drek.
I've put off writing this review unconscionably long because Johnston is excessively generous in evaluating my influence on the events of the Peasants' Revolt in Toronto. Conflict of interest declared.
Johnston's intention in writing this remarkably, frighteningly evocative epic of an important manifestation of the nation's theatrical Reformation, brought about largely by the efforts and energy of a number of small, undernourished Toronto theatres, is 'to document the personalities which created these theatres, the forces which shaped them, and the events which brought them to prominence.' In this he succeeds admirably; but there are other thrills in store! The extensive 1968-1975 playlist (Appendix B) is in itself worth the price of the book, and will be of inestimable value to future students of our country's theatrical coming of age. The text itself reflects admirably the determination of the period, the principals and their principles. We knew what we wanted and we knew what we were in for. I remember a 1972 speech to a few of the usual suspects, members of the Playwrights Co-op, wherein, in all seriousness, I compared us to the dead Vietnamese truck driver whose diary, found on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, stated his knowledge that he was part of a generation destined and duty-bound to die for its country. I didn't exactly throw my life into the struggle. I threw my mortgages, my family, my best creative and improvisational energies; and in so doing, I was typical of those in the scene Johnston documents so compellingly. Our strategy, once the 1971 Gasp6 and Niagara-on-the-Lake think tanks did their work, was generally clear and coherent; the tactics we employed were diverse and driven by the winds of funding and other fashion.
In mapping a mythology, which is what Johnston has done, the explorer must be careful to be as ontological as possible, to keep getting back to the sources of the rivers, and the sources of the sources.
In what is generally a careful assessment of the pressures which caused the seventies in Toronto theatre to be so remarkably different from the sixties, Johnston inexplicably omits any mention of 'Colloquium '67: The Design of Theatres.' This was an international meeting held in Montreal during Expo by the Canadian Theatre Centre: some 600 architects, critics, playwrights, directors and designers turned up from everywhere, along with the entire student body of the National Theatre School and many of the later luminaries of the Toronto uprising. One of the most basic thrusts of Colloquium '67-driven by the stated and passionate views of speakers like Sean Kenny, the British Designer, and Jerzy Grotowski, the Polish director/theoretician, along with Kenneth Tynan, Arnold Wesker and many others-was of the desperate need for small theatres and open spaces adapted to the dramatists' needs, in which plays could be created. What emerged in Toronto four years later was this vision made flesh by a leadership which had met, talked and argued with, and absorbed the insights of leading proponents of an international movement determined to do something about the comparative lack of creativity and creation stultifying the theatre everywhere. This meeting was a definite turning-point in Canadian attitudes, aspirations and ambitions in theatre. Perhaps sentimentally, because of our long friendship, I wish Johnston had made more of John Hirsch's influence on the process and product. The first time I came in contact with three of the four members of the New Directors Group was when they played Air Cadets in John's television production of my Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass. He encouraged me, at Stratford, to buy the theatrical rights to Michael Ondaatje's Billy the Kid. He provided first-class productions of James Reaney's work, long before fashion supported this. As head of Drama at CBC-TV, he took the creators and their creations directly from the small theatres to the small screen. All this meant a lot at the time.
I think Johnston could have done more to trace the influence of two 1971 meetings. I attended both and worked with Brian Doherty to organize the second. These conferences articulated the aims of the movement and, almost more important, produced a concrete wish-list of needed infrastructure. Within three years, the most basic needs were being met: a number of theatres dedicated to the development of Canadian dramaturgy; a publishing company to distribute the works (Playwrights Co-op); developmental resources removed from the scene of battle (Banff Playwrights Colony). The point is this. We didn't start these and other necessary institutions because LIP money became available; on the contrary, we used the LIP and OFY programs as sources of risk capital, to launch in many cases endeavours we had all agreed were necessary, endeavours the arts councils had, at that time, utterly no interest in supporting in any substantial way.
History revises the past into a useful rationalization for the present and a motivation and inspiration for the future. For the immediate future, the challenge for Toronto and the Canadian theatre as a whole is the exuberant success of the pre-sold blockbuster mega-musical. Thanks to them, three commercial theatres in Toronto now have collective annual revenues exceeding the total annual revenues of the entire non-profit arts economy of this city.
People are nervous, but what Johnston's book tells them is to be brave; Canadian dramaturgy has survived far sterner challenges in the past. After all, musicals didn't hurt Off-Broadway or Off-off. A native theatre truly mirroring its audience's fears and dreams can itself continue to dream without real fear.
What Johnston's book suggests is that we could do with a few books from those who took part in the Wars of the Risers, seventies and after, telling it all, like the Bard says, 'with advantages,' from their own personal points of view. If they do, they will have to thank Denis Johnston for making them seem worth a little autobiographical strumming of the literary banjo.
When Bill and Guy took over the St. Lawrence Centre, I knew a battle had been won. The war continues. Where's the scripts, everybody?