Bill Glassco
The very existence of this book, and the perceived need for it, tell us much. It officially proclaims that Canadian Theatre exists and is important. Its price, size, lavish cover and illustrations, the comprehensive articles which for the most part judiciously cover the territory, its impressive roster of contributors, all bear witness to the earnestness of the undertaking. The standards of writing and scholarship are generally first-rate (though I stumbled uncomprehendingly through Lorraine Hébert's piece on "Acting-Quebec"), and the book does assemble a mass of important historical information as it provides us with a clear indication of how our theatre has developed. It is especially valuable on Quebec Theatre, of which so few Anglophones have any knowledge whatever. By implication it is self-congratulatory, a Methodist Sunday School report to the parents confirming that our theatre has ARRIVED. Look at us!
Look at what? Well, the cover is a good place to start, and the cover is precisely what Canadian Theatre is not, however much some might wish otherwise. A black and white photo from Ten Lost Years or Paper Wheat would have been more representative (isn't collective creation Canada's most indigenous form of theatrical expression?), but that would have excluded Quebec, whose folk panache is strikingly different from English Canada's Calvinist grit. The cover we have at once suggests how we want to be seen, and how we need to see ourselves: civilized, international, like the Shaw and Stratford festivals that yearn to be 'world-class.' The truth is that the real Canadian Theatre is closer to a community of actors in Clinton, Ontario, making The Farm Show than it is to Vincent Massey aspiring (and getting) to play the Pope. A rapid photo survey of the book bears out this exasperating dichotomy in our theatre between hayseed and dinner jackets. The proximity of the Blyth and Stratford festivals says it all. Theatre in English Canada is deeply troubled, and thanks to this book's incisive coverage of Quebec's theatre we can better understand why. Start with the entry on 'Theatre in Quebec.' So much activity in the direction of a healthy indigenous theatre in the 40s, 50s and 60s when so little, comparatively, was happening in English Canada. Quebec theatres were started and run not by Frenchmen but by native-born Quebecers who cared passionately about defining their culture (see, for instance, 'Les Compagnons de Saint-Laurent' and 'La Comédie Canadienne'). And long before the Canada Council started handing out grants, they were encouraged by a provincial government that cared enough about that culture to found two training conservatoires as well as a permanent provincial touring company, the TPQ. Over the past thirty years their theatre has reflected more social commitment than ours (see Lucie Robert's entry on 'Théâtre Engagé') as well as genuine exploration, because their artists know that what they create is valued, that their audiences need and welcome their visions.
I felt this hunger briefly in Toronto in the early 70s when I started Tarragon, a time when the conjunction of Expo, Trudeau, Vietnam and Jane Jacobs was encouraging Toronto to define itself, and to fight for that definition. I have rarely felt it since. At some point, unlike Quebec's, Anglophone society stopped needing to define itself, and our theatre began to stagnate. In most of the big cities our engagement with the public ever since has been a relatively superficial, and increasingly commercial affair, and our theatre, despite the emergence of so many fine actors and playwrights, evolved in very cynical directions.
Theatre in English Canada has come a long way, to be sure, but we are still caught between a compulsive need to emulate our British heritage, and a sullen determination to be Canadian and at least ourselves. What can one say about a theatre culture that has failed to produce a native-born director of sufficient vision and expertise to guide either of its two principal theatres, the Shaw and Stratford festivals? This battle was fought and lost by eight Canadian directors plus Robertson Davies back in 1974 (a moment in Stratford's history that ought to appear in this volume, lest we forget!) and again in 1980, when the gang of four were ousted. Since then we have given up. Why? Because it no longer matters enough. Stratford is what it is, its raison d'être having become survival. At the same time, desperate to be ourselves at all costs, we have encouraged a vast number of small-minded, parochial and mediocre undertakings, opting too often for a smug and complacent Canadianism at the expense of quality. We hardly deserve to have a theatre culture.
And so the efficient existence of this Oxford 'Companion' is disturbing because it raises the spectre of what hasn't yet been written about our theatre. We have this handsome, near-authoritative volume before we have had any lucid or cogent appraisal of the meanings of Canadian theatre. The apparatus has preceded the content. We have put everyone and everything in place before we have any grasp of what it all adds up to or why anyone should be anywhere.
A footnote re: omissions. Since inclusion in this book nevertheless implies importance, it must be deeply discouraging to the deserving talents who have been left out. Who, after all, is this book for? Apart from its usefulness to people teaching Cancult at home and abroad, and its decorative function on embassy coffee-tables, it is surely for the practitioners, who need to know more about their theatre - what it is and how it has developed - and can benefit from knowing who have created it.
In their introduction the editors regret that it was not possible to include a major entry on Design. This is indefensible. It is like saying that design - including lighting and sound - doesn't significantly affect the evolution of our theatre. While many individual designers are recognized, outstanding ones such as Mary Kerr and John Ferguson, or Guy Neveau and Meredith Caron in Quebec, whose work over the years on new plays has dynamically influenced their reception, are ignored. Lighting designers, with the exception of Michael J. Whitfield, apparently do not exist. How easy it should have been to include an entry on Lighting Design (English and French) which at the very least would have acknowledged the contribution of artists such as Nick Cernovich, Jeffrey Dallas, Michel Boilieu and Claude Accolas, to name only a few. And composers? It's hard enough to find money to commission scores. Can we not be sufficiently generous to pay tribute to people like Alan Laing, who has given so much over the years, at Stratford, Neptune, at the NAC and elsewhere? Surely these designers and composers merit some of the space taken up by the many theatres long since demolished that the Companion so lovingly (and boringly) catalogues.
As for the actors, where are Ken Welsh, Roly Hewgill, Colin Fox? If a brilliant young designer like Michael Levine is worth an entry, why not an outstanding young classical actor like Colme Feore? Where are Susan Wright, Lally Cadeau, Joan Orenstein, Patricia Hamilton, Marti Maraden, actresses indisputably at the top of their profession, whose work over the years has profoundly affected our theatre? Where is Neil Munro, a great actor, recently become a superb director? Or Larry Lillo, who has done more than his share for theatre in Vancouver and London? And from the Quebec theatre I question the omission of Gilles Renaud, Monique Mercure, Viola Léger, Rita Lafontaine ... More shocking is the implicit reduction to the status of persona non grata of Albert Millaire, a giant of our profession, and one of the few Quebec artists who has worked successfully in English Canada. Not to mention Robert Lepage, who may be the greatest theatrical wizard this country has yet produced. What must these proud artists feel when they see this book?
Although it is generous to playwrights, there are some curious oversights, notably Mazo de la Roche, whose fascinating Whiteoaks enjoyed a solid run on Broadway in the 30s; Don Hannah, one of Urjo Kareda's happier discoveries; and Michael Mercer, author of Goodnight Disgrace, one of the finest Canadian plays of the past decade.
Critics receive the short shrift most of them deserve, but there should have been room for the excellent Zelda Heller, late of the Montreal Star, and most certainly for Ronald Bryden, late of the Observer, who is making further impact as Director of U of T's Graduate Centre for Study of Drama.
I must also draw attention to the piece on the National Theatre School, which reveals next to nothing about how our actors have been trained over the years. Somewhere this book should be acknowledging what section heads like André Pagé, Michelle Rossignol, Joy Coghill, Douglas Rain and Joel Miller have done for their graduates, so many of whom are today our leading actors. Nor let us forget important teachers and visiting directors such as Pierre Lefèvre, Henry Tarvainen and Michael Mawson.
Again, if I may close on a wholly personal note: the photo of me is sixteen years out of date. Why do the editors want me to look like a Young Turk? Is it because all of us in the Canadian play camp must be perceived as rebels?