JEAN YOON
For those following or new to the debate on non-traditional casting, Talent Over Tradition is a useful record of the 1988 National Symposium on NonTraditional Casting. The rationale behind publishing these transcripts now, four years later, is that little has changed and promises made have not been kept.
A quick read-through reveals, to some extent, the reasons change has been so slow in coming. In the panel discussions the notion of 'non-traditional casting' is framed largely from a performer's perspective. Why isn't a black actress given equal opportunity to play Blanche in Street Car Named Desire?
Why? The notable absences of many of the high-powered artistic directors who are in a position to shape a theatre's season and determine casting requirements is answer enough. Many of the people with power are not interested in, if not outright hostile to such 'risky' casting. They are stuck in an outdated 'aesthetic'; they refuse to recognize that a vibrant Canadian theatre is responsive to changes in the country at large.
One artistic director argues that playwrights are likely to be 'resistant' to non-traditional casting, but he hopes that the symposium will 'widen a playwright's awareness of the possibilities of non-traditional casting in non-family situations.' All his writers, its seems, are white. A director of a prominent university theatre program waffles, refers to a forty-year-old actress as 'a girl,' and concludes by insisting, contrary to all evidence, that Canadian training institutions adequately serve minority actors. 'If the truck works, don't fix it.'
For the most part, the issue of non-traditional casting here is one in which visible and audible minority actors demand that white Canadian establishment directors let them in and recognize their talent. This approach is evident in the choice of panelists and in the performances presented between panel discussions: non-traditionally cast scenes from shows such as Taming of the Shrew, Zastrozzi, and Saved. A worthy and just demand, non-traditional casting as it is here has limitations in that the power dynamic is so blatantly imbalanced. Unless non-traditional casting initiatives are coupled with training and programming changes, visible and audible minorities are ultimately framed as victims with no recourse but to plead for work.
Discussion does come, however, to the playwright and the need to develop a new generation of playwrights writing from a place where cultural plurality is the norm. Ironically, this point comes most eloquently from Richard Greenblatt, a theatre artist who is not of colour:
I believe that we need to actively solicit, promote and encourage visible minority voices, in the same way that we have, to some extent, been encouraging Canadian voices. It's just that we need to redefine what Canadian is.
Although there has been little change on Canadian mainstages and in regional theatres since 1988, there is exciting development, particularly in popular theatre, small new theatre collectives in urban centres and more established houses such as Nightwood Theatre, Young People's Theatre and Native Earth-all companies that stress the development of new work along with the nurturing of culturally diverse theatre artists of all disciplines.
Non-traditional casting is coming, though it may not come in ways we can predict. Recently released figures project that in the year 2001 more than 17% of Canada and 45% of Metropolitan Toronto will be visible minority. Major theatres, small companies, marketers and advertisers are beginning to take notice. The Canadian theatre community will soon have no choice but to respond or find itself with no audience.
The Non-Traditional Casting Symposium was the beginning, the spark for change. It mobilized the theatre community, crystallized ideas and heightened awareness. Talent Over Tradition stands as a worthy record of an era of change for a new and rejuvenated Canadian theatre.