LOUISE H. FORSYTH
This special issue is dedicated to the many women of Canada and Quebec who, from the very beginnings of this country, made a major contribution to its cultural life. Specifically, it is dedicated to the women who made, who taught how to make, or who helped to make theatre here. A glance through the volume will reveal, though, that it has been possible to speak of only a few of these women. In fact, the majority of their names and what they did will never be known - the Ursulines for whom theatre was a vital approach to education in early 17th century Quebec; the women in towns and outlying communities who looked after social activities and sustained the vital bonds by organizing shows, pageants and concerts in schools, churches and community halls; others, whether in amateur or professional theatres, in anglophone or francophone communities, who looked after the myriad details and tasks involving costumes, props, rehearsals, publicity, administration, which are so often overlooked and yet without which performances could not have taken place. I am reminded here as well of the many mothers or wives mentioned in the reminscences of those who were active in amateur theatre. It is claimed that these women had little interest in theatre, and yet for years they allowed their closets and cupboards to be raided for costumes and props, their homes invaded by actors and directors in search of rehearsal space, while they provided the nurturing and services necessary so the others could make theatre. With their own unique talents, and in a variety of ways women have been making and helping to make theatre throughout Canadian history and, no doubt, in every Canadian community.
And then, of course, there are the many women whose names we do know, women whose contribution to the mainstream of theatre activities in Canada is recognized, although research published to date on the history of theatre in Quebec and Canada frequently does not take into account what these women did as playwrights, directors, actors, teachers, designers, archivists, founders and administrators of theatres and theatre companies. They worked in every theatrical sphere: educational, amateur, professional.1 They continue to do so, playing a particularly unique and vital role in theatre for the young. Studies in this issue, reflecting a thoroughly arbitrary set of circumstances, discuss the contributions of only a very few of the women in Canadian theatre history: Elizabeth Sterling Haynes, Laure Cabana, Anne Hébert, Elsie Park Gowan, Emma Albani. Across a long history there are others who are equally well known and deserving of study. Yet other women are not so well known despite their courageous and determined pioneering. This special issue on women in Canadian theatre does not in any way represent itself as offering an overview of the subject. Much work remains to be done, and quickly, if we wish our history to be complete.
Over the past decade or so considerable research has been done in Canadian theatre history, including, of course, women of the theatre: lost plays have been published; journal articles have appeared; increasingly, theses are bringing to light specific details on myriad aspects of the subject. Still, there are disturbing gaps and absences. There is need for booklength studies which explore fully and in depth the participation by women in the history of Quebec and Canadian theatre. Of more pressing urgency than such large studies right now is the need for bibliographical resources. Much bibliographical work has been done over the past decade in Canadian theatre history in both French and English. 2 At the present time scholars have excellent and up-to-date instruments at their disposal. I hoped to be able to publish in this issue a checklist of the most important sources available to those whose specific Interest is women in Canadian theatre. The need for this is obvious. Although I was encouraged to learn that a number of colleagues have begun bibliographical work, there was nothing which was sufficiently complete to be published. A data base needs to be established, drawing on the bibliographical research already done in the larger field of Canadian theatre history. From such a base complete checklists or bibliographies could be compiled for publication in specific areas as they are required.
Although the importance of women's contribution to Canadian theatre is widely acknowledged, research into their actual activities seems to lag significantly behind that done on men of the theatre. Even worse, the major role women once played in the theatre seems to have become a phenomenon of the past. As long as Canadian theatre was primarily amateur, it was an area in which women could assume roles of leadership, take initiatives and exercise significant influence. However, in the course of the past two decades Canadian theatre has come of age - major professional companies now dominate the horizon; ongoing government subsidies are a reality. As this shift from amateur to professional has occurred, that is to say, as theatre direction came to involve the management of large sums of money and to be of political interest, men have taken over. The well-documented report prepared by Rina Fraticelli for Status of Women Canada,"'The Status of Women in the Canadian Theatre' (1982) remains the most eloquent study to date of the disadvantaged position of women in Canadian theatre.3
By its very nature theatre represents the structures of the society in which it emerges, serving to reflect concretely the ways in which members of the group see themselves individually and collectively. In a patriarchal society it is inevitable, then, that the images created in the theatre and the practices of the theatre as social institution will both show and place women in an inferior position. Over the past decade many women in Canada have become increasingly aware of this unacceptable fact. They have encountered silence and indifference when they undertook research to study the problem, as occurred to the Fraticelli report, or else they met resistance to attempts to bring about change. The source of the problem was deemed to be inherent to women's inferior experience and very way of being, which has been seen to be of little relevance for most men and removed from their criteria for quality:
In dismissing the substance of women's lives as insignificant, inappropriate, uninteresting and bland, the theory of gender discrimination finds its most efficient strategy. The invalidation of the playwright's personal experience sabotages and censors her far more efficiently than any public censorship - which at least comes after the act of creation could hope to. (Fraticelli, p. 13)
There has emerged as a result of such dismissal a strong feminist theatre in many parts of the country. Women are finding that the theatrical stage, when they control it on terms suitable to their needs, is an excellent place to practice subversion, while providing them with the space they need to consolidate their power and energy, to get in touch with themselves, and, perhaps, to make'society in a different image, to make theatre in a different way.
Although feminist theatre promises to have a significant impact on the evolution of Canadian theatre history, it has not been possible in this special issue to study its emergence here and to situate it as an historical phenomenon .4
Feminist theatre has not emerged in isolation. It finds a resounding echo in all forms of cultural expression, where the voice of feminism calls forth fresh patterns of reality. This voice draws attention to the need for critical analysis of dominant ideologies and of their relationship to the power structure. There are demands from women for change in the practices of Canadian theatre. There are also questions raised in the areas of education and criticism regarding established methodologies and whether they are as objectively sound as they have appeared to be in providing us with information on our past. Perhaps these very methods favor the selection and retention of only certain kinds of facts. Ann Saddlemyer's Forum essay offers thought-provoking reflections on the techniques we use and the assumptions we make as Canadian theatre historians.
While this special issue on women in Quebec and Canadian theatre history makes no claims whatsoever to cover any part of this vast field completely, I am pleased that the various articles reflect theatrical activity in each of the regions of southern Canada, from coast to coast. They also discuss women in the theatre as playwright, educator, designer and administrator. Elsie Park Gowan's play The Last Cavernan allows us to hear a voice, too seldom heard from a period about which we still have much to discover. I am also pleased that the beginnings of experimental theatre in English Canada are discussed by Joan Ferry (although I regret the absence of such a discussion from Quebec, where experimentation was extremely exciting and important), since technical innovation necessarily accompanies new ideas. When women are able to work to their full capacity in the theatre, their theatrical practice is unique to them. As women in Canadian theatre assume control in their own profession, making their voices and their bodies heard, they are proving to be major technical innovators, causing the distinctions among legitimate stage, radio, performance and cinema to fall away and leave room for fresh images. In the reviews, this special issue gives at least a small idea of the wide range of media in which women are expressing themselves dramatically, while reminding us of a glamorous diva of the past and of the work of one of the major Canadian playwrights of the present.
If readers of this issue are sufficiently struck by the number of gaps and inadequacies it contains to undertake further research, if they see the various articles as an invitation to explore the field even further, my hopes and purpose will have been achieved.
NOTES
1 Among works which have studied women in Canadian theatre history or
have made women's texts available, in addition to those devoted to a single
playwright, one must mention DIANE BESSAI Prairie Performance. A Collection
of Short Plays (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1980); Canadian Theatre
Review 43 (Summer 1985); 'Théâtre-femmes' Jeu. Cahiers
de théâtre 16 (1980); BETTY LEE Love and Whisky. The Story
of the Dominion Drama Festival(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart
Limited, 1973); ROTA LISTER 'Canadian Plays in English about Older
Women: a Bibliography' Resources for Feminist Research / Documentation
sur la recherche féministe, 2, 2 (1982); EDOUARD G. RINFRET
Le Théâtre canadien d'expression française. Répertoire analytique
des origines à nos jours tomes 1-4 (Montréal: Leméac,
1975-1977); ANN SADDLEMYER 'Circus Feminus: 100 Plays by English-Canadian
Women' Room of One's Own 8, 2 (1983) 78-91; RENATE USMIANI Second
Stage; ANTON WAGNER ed. Women Pioneers. Canada's Lost Plays
Vol. 2 (Toronto: Canadian Theatre Review Publications 1979);
as well as material found in the following periodicals: Canadian
Drama/L'Art dramatique canadien, Canadian Theatre Review, Jeu. Cahiers
de théâtre, NeWest Review, Now, Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du
théâtre au Canada, University of Toronto Quarterly.
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2 Some important bibliographical resources: 'Le Théâtre canadien-français' Archives des lettres canadiennes V (Montréal: Fides
1976); JOHN BALL & RICHARD PLANT. A Bibliography of Canadian Theatre
History 1583-1975 (Toronto: Playwrights Co-op 1976) with
Supplement 1975-1976 (1979); PIERRE LAVOIE Pour suivre le théâtre
au Québec. Les ressources documentaires (Québec: Institut québécois
de recherche sur la culture, 1985).
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3 This report has been widely circulated in the form of photocopies
and was extracted under the title 'The Invisibility Factor - Status of
Women in Canadian Theatre' in Fuse 6, 3 (1982). It has never been
published in its entirety in English, although it was translated by HÉLÈNE
VRAZIAN and published in Jeu. Cahiers de théâtre 31 (1984) 65-107.
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4 There are already a certain number of articles, studies and
special issues of periodicals on feminist theatre in Canada: playwrights,
actors, companies, methods, in, for example Room of One's Own, Fireweed,
Jeu. Cabiers de théâtre, Canadian Theatre Review. For that reason,
it seemed preferable in this issue to concentrate mainly on women of the
past. This is not to say that the information available and distributed
on feminist theatre is adequate. Of particular concern is the non-availability
of play and performance texts. There are so few which manage to get published.
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Louise H. Forsyth
University of Western Ontario