This week’s edition applies a feminist lense to the theatre.
Our Geographic Correspondents have approached the issue head-on in their bi-weekly cross-country conversation. Adrienne Wong, SpiderWebShow Head Researcher, Experimentsconnects her latest work to being a mother. Playwright and Parliamentary Assistant Darrah Teitel examines gender roles and expectations in Michael Healey’s Parliament-set play Proud.
Cumulatively these articles point to an evolving understanding of feminism that adapts to multiple identities; a humanist insight into the term that advocates for equality in the context of mutable roles in the theatre and society at large.
In which Jacob and Adrienne discuss ways of externalizing ideas during the creation process, the ethics of permission in contemporary performance practices, how to build a culture of supportive critical dialogue within the arts community. iTunes | RSS
Jacob talks shows he’s working on. Adrienne talks about shows she’s working on. They also talk about:
importance of defining a shared vocabulary when collaborating – but without getting stalled;
the difference between a prototype and a workshop;
how the idea of user testing applies to theatre;
medical marijuana;
the fix vs the cut; and
teaching toddlers to tell time, among other things.
In which Jacob and Adrienne talk about what they’re up to, the relative merits of boxed wine. Also about doing a podcast about theatre, the arts and how we’re doing. Could we do that together? What might that look like?
They come to some decisions – primarily that they are going to do a podcast together.
They also talk about Adrienne’s son’s future as a physical comedy star or basketball player. There was a nice visit from Nathan, but we would have to cut most of that out if we were releasing it.
Which we’re not. Because mostly we talked about the show in a not good way.
But we’ve got some show notes anyway, including a link to Jacob’s list of podcasts.
i’m in vancouver right now, seeing some shows at PuSh, writing a lot, doing a development/creation process for a piece i’m building, and generally feeling smug about skipping the winter (a popular local pastime), while trying to sort out where i want to be for the next while, having recently been shot out of the other end of the tubes of a new experiment in director training.
the experiment is unique in this country, as a partnership between a professional theatre company (canadian stage) and an educational institution (york university). i went through its first round with my colleague ker wells. the program’s aim was put to us as being ‘to bring the inventiveness of the independent community to canada’s larger stages.’ much of our focus was on what kim collier called “capacity building”–equipping us with directorial tools that would allow us to enact large-scale visions within the financial realities of the Canadian Creation Process.
ker and i had a beer last night before seeing a show, and he asked me if anything had changed about what kind of work i want to make and how i want to make it, and how i felt about working in canada, having now completed this degree.
we had both been reluctant about the prospect of retraining in any setting, particularly within an institution of mainstream canadian theatre. the reasons were different, but both had to do with producing structures in this country and what was possible to achieve within them.
i had been working in germany, which as everyone knows is the Promised Land of ART and CULTURE where there is Limitless Funding, Sophisticated Audiences who Understand Everything, Endless Rehearsal Periods, and All Theatre is Always Good All the Time. or something.
what german theatre does have going for it is its higher cultural value, as something entrenched in their national identity since before germany was even germany. what impressed me most was a premiere i attended that i mistook for a student night, because so many people my age were there–but it was a premiere. theatre is on the list of options of Something To Do On A Saturday Night. most people my age in canada were put on a traumatizing schoolbus to stratford at some point in highschooldays, skipped out at the intermission to get stoned in the rose gardens, and never went to another play again.
until that point all of my work in canada had been independently producing site-specific stagings of classical texts (some obscure, some less so) around downtown toronto. independently producing was frustrating, and i had never really felt that integrated into toronto’s theatre community, probably due to my paralyzing inability to do that thing that is most commonly referred to as “networking.” my attraction towards classical texts with casts of 14 actors has never really gained me a lot of traction with granting bodies, which tend to favour new canadian texts with affordable cast sizes. i had heard about this 3-week equity process, but never navigated one myself. i had never even directed a canadian play.
heaven (zu tristan)
i was seriously questioning how much longer i would slog it out back in toronto when this opportunity arose. what appealed to me about the program was that it was a structured way of doing what i was already doing–continuing to apprentice with directors whose work excited me, both in canada and abroad, while also creating my own work.
so what, if anything has changed?
coming out the other end of this program, we’ve both gained a lot. i have a much clearer sense of how to navigate the ins and outs of equity and IATSE, what a conventional process looks like, how to budget, schedule, and pre-plan a process to maximize productivity. there was no one better than kim collier to teach us how to be a bulldog about protecting your project from the pressures of producing structures. directing shakespeare in high park we dealt with the pressures of the minimal rehearsal time and found that a play could indeed be made in that timeframe, for better or …
the kind of work i want to make has not changed much. i still find myself obstinately drawn to interpreting dense classical texts in contemporary stagings, but i’ve relaxed a bit. i directed my first canadian play at CS and not only did i not hate it, i was proud of the piece that we built, and impressed by the writing. i’m currently workshopping another canadian-authored piece. that said, i think canadians tend to be self-congratulatory, rewarding things for being canadian rather than for being good.
i think process in our mainstream producing structures is highly problematic. i also recognize that funding has a lot to do with this.
i still don’t think it’s possible to make great theatre in only three weeks. it can be adequate, and even sometimes good, but great theatre takes time. for canadian theatre to be world-class i think we need to be re-examining how we shape our processes in our mainstream houses. i hope to see more theatres partnering with independent companies to present shows that have had development periods tailored towards each project’s needs, and perhaps a re-allocation of funding reflective of this.
Einstein on the Beach
because funding is balls, there’s a scarcity of work, which makes us frightened of paying to bring in outside artists. this makes us insular, inward-looking, and incestuous, and contributes to our tendency to believe that Canadian Work needs to be rewarded even when boring and shitty. both PuSh and luminato have come under fire for not engaging enough local artists. while i understand the anger to a certain degree, exposure to foreign works and artists, whether you connect to them or not, can only enrich our inclination to experiment. maybe the issue is one of access–special ticket prices for local artists would go a long way in increasing goodwill and making this argument viable.
most of all, i have serious questions about making theatre in a country where people don’t go to the theatre. it makes artists over-cautious, and the work safe. as long as we work within a theatre system that remains dependent on ticket sales, and is not engaged with by the general public, but by a perceived bourgeois subscription-buying elite, artists are forced to make the work that audiences think they want. this is backwards. the artist’s job is to show society something about themselves that they’d probably rather not know, and it is admittedly counterintuitive to think that this is what sells tickets. but remarkably, theatre seems to sell more tickets in places where it is actually fulfilling this function.
so why stay? i’m asking myself that question now. maybe for the same reason i decided to come back and do a master’s degree–it’s my context. any artist worth their salt makes work about what they see, more specifically what they see is wrong with the world. all of my directing work, be it on obscure expressionist texts about dancing robots and communists, or witch hunts in renaissance england, is about my experience of the world, and it is deeply informed by the makeup of the culture i know best.
Gob Squad
shortly before leaving berlin to come back and interview for canadian stage and york’s program, i saw a beautiful show about (among many other things) a couple who decided to commit suicide together after germany reunified, because the world they knew had changed beyond recognition. even though in the particular we often find the universal (a rapidly changing world that no longer makes sense to us), and german culture is not superficially all that different from north america, i became acutely aware that, in spite of having learned the language and attempted to absorb some of their history and literary traditions, mauerfall would never mean the same thing to me. the german audience had a frame of reference entirely outside my own.
i could build some shows about my experience of being another foreigner among the massive expat community in berlin. i could discuss how ludricrously backward (sometimes downright racist) their approach to their turkish population seems to a canadian. i could talk about global citizenship. i may yet do all of these. but my perspective on their culture will always be an outside one. meanwhile, there was a lot in canada that i was pissed off about, and still am–an energy i’ve always found productive in making theatre.
for instance:
there’s a dark underbelly that allows canada to possess its rosy reputation. the rest of vancouver is beautiful precisely because of, not in spite of, the existence of east hastings.
there are violent and dangerous currents running beneath the extreme politeness that foreigners perceive in us–we’re so diverse, different, and unequal that without it we’d all kill each other (probably on the TTC, which tends to exacerbate such impulses).
there are large portions of the canadian population which remain unaccounted for and ignored by our social institutions. homelessness, extreme poverty, and mental health are inextricably linked in this country and nowhere near being adequately addressed.
we are a nation of people lying about a genocide in our recent past, and we continue to commit atrocities against our aboriginal peoples.
i think this anglo/franco divide is bullshit, and that we need to attend to the real divisions in this country, which are social and also cultural, but not really between two european colonial cultures.
to top it all off we have some really evil politicians who have a stranglehold on government and exploit media to manipulate public attention in order to pass their most insidious legislation while we aren’t looking.
those are a few of those things i’m pissed off about. i don’t delude myself thinking that Theatre Has The Power To Change Them, but i firmly believe that public discourse initiated by artists, whose social function is to critique the status quo, can contribute to turning the population towards these problems; asking difficult questions, critiquing injustices where they can. this i can do better here than elsewhere.
As an Albertan in Montreal, I feel like everyone is mentally constructing a Stephen Harper mask to go over my own face. These are interactions I would never have with people from my oil-sucking homeland, and I love it. Through the French slang and “tabernacles”, I hear someone daring me to find common ground with them.
I love the thrill of my own identity being in motion. This kind of motion challenges my certainty of the world. This is the kind of feeling I want to bring to the theatre.
I thought being bilingual as a director at the National Theatre school would instantly open up new collaborative doors, but no matter how much people talk about French and English artists collaborating, it rarely occurs. I don’t think this is a problem of language, but rather a difference in artistic practice. We have different union rules, we are interested in different kinds of writing, but most of all, our theatre traditions come from different roots.
This difference in aesthetic has somehow kept a lot of English and French artists in Montreal (and in Canada) from working together, although there are some great examples of collaborative success: my favorite show of the year so far, Michael Mackenzie’s Instructions to Any Future Socialist Government Proposing to Abolish Christmas, put a seemingly realistic setting from a real-time unity play into the hands of metteur en scene Marc Beaupre’s incredible interpretation. Beaupre brought to Mackenzie’s script a sense of play, a setting and use of the theatre that turned the story into a game the audience was implicated in. Also on that list is Theatre Prospero’s inclusion of everything from Russian to German to British works, as well as Theatre La Licorne’s illumination of the palpable cross-over between Quebec’s working class history in Canada with Scotland’s relationship with England.
It’s this cultural cross-over that I’m digging into right now.
I’m a little scared to go down this side bar, but here goes:
I love games.
I love video games.
I was raised on them.
There are huge similarities to me between designing a game and writing and directing for the theatre: you put something personal onto the stage, you strive to have the audience (or the “player”) sympathize and understand their hero’s quest, and you build a world in which the player has room to learn and process on their own.
There is so much competition in the video game industry today that high-budget graphics alone don’t cut it: many companies have reverted back to the basics of what connects us to games, and in Video game design, rule number one is Give the player obstacles that force them to teach themselves how to playrather than shoving instructions down their throat.
Following the next Quebecois inside-joke my Francophone roommates say isn’t easy, but sitting down and playing an old school video game is, because it’s connecting us through our universal desire to play and literally solve the puzzles of our world.
Ubisoft’s HQ in Montreal
I’m starting to scratch at something I want to uncover. I believe in a theatre where my English and French colleagues combine their artistic traditions to create a new aesthetic. I feel that this aesthetic will flourish out of the same values that connect my roommate and myself: a reduction of language, a return to the basics, and a commitment to connect with an audience on that basic level that new video games seem to have achieved.
I want to find anyone out there who is curious by the idea of French and English artists creating in the same room. None of this theoretical “wouldn’t it be great” talk.
This is something that is starting soon. If you’re out there, speak both languages, and are curious about what puts you out of your cultural comfort zone, and maybe even grew up being told that the concepts behind video games are irrelevant and childish, I invite you to get in touch, and start a conversation.
(jon.lachlan.stewart@hotmail.com). You can also reach me on Facebook, it’s Jon Lachlan Stewart. I’m serious here. Je t’invites.
I noticed a lot of theatre schools attract international students and frequently there is a student in class who comes from abroad. I am a recent immigrant to Canada myself and I must admit I had a very hard time understanding Canadian theatre when I first arrived.
First, I simply tried going to theatres to see shows. Company names didn’t mean anything to me. Judging by the name of the company I couldn’t even tell the difference between a professional and a community group. I am sure there were good shows happening at that time – I was just not able to find them. I was desperately looking for some kind of a comprehensive guide through Canadian theatre and had no luck doing so. I tried reading about Canadian theatre on Wikipedia. It helped but it was written in terminology that simply didn’t exist in my world.
The theatre I was used to was heavily funded by the government. Every company owned a venue and had a group of actors employed for life, on paychecks with full benefits and a nice pension waiting when they retired.
I did not know anyone from the theatre community and when I tried writing a few emails for meetings most of my fellow artists did not even bother to reply. I literally didn’t know where to begin. At that point, I didn’t even know what questions to ask. Finally, I decided I should go back to school. It was not an easy decision. I was in my early 30’s, with more than 10 years of practice. I had already gone through the pain of Theatre school more than a decade ago and I was not sure if I was willing to do it again.
In my mini country of only 2 million people, we only have one theatre school. It produces 10 graduate actors per year, 2 – 3 directors and about 5 dramaturges. With 13 fully subsidized theatres in the country, a national film, television and radio industry as well as commercial voice work there is enough work for the actors. Even the actors who were not so good during their studies don’t wait tables. It basically means that if you pass the audition for the school, you are guaranteed to work for life.
Image by Jim Vance
So, this was how things worked in my head. I had no idea how many theatre schools or programs existed in Canada and I just googled national theatre school. I applied and got in. As I entered my new environment, I started discovering more and more differences between Canadian theatre and the theatre I knew from back home. One of the crucial differences was general theatre knowledge.
In my country, every kid in school reads the Greeks, Shakespeare, Moliere as well as basic philosophy and art history. Theatre artists are very familiar with the latest theatre practices and practitioners from around the globe. Theatre festivals constantly bring a lot of shows from all around the globe and the audience is used to watching shows in many different languages they don’t understand. Theatre has a language of its own and exceeds the barrier of language and culture. The term festival itself indicates a concentrated number of events where different companies present their work. Festival is not a producing company, rather a presentation of a wide range of theatre work pushing the boundaries of what’s new.
Here, in Canada, I was shocked to realize that cultural pluralism I see on the streets seems to be a minority in theatre. For about a year now, I have been meeting artists who came to Canada to study. Some already finished their studies and tried to pursue an artistic career. The stories they have shared with me were very alarming. It seems like they were mostly very well accepted as students but had tremendous problems trying to sustain themselves as artists. Here are some examples:
“My agent kept on sending me to audition for terrorist roles.”
“I was the best in class. Now, I can’t get a role in theatre because I have an accent.”
“No one needed a geeky looking Russian. I tried exercising but I just didn’t end up looking like one of that Russian mafia butch guys.”
“I try to pay my bills with running drama classes in my native language for my community. Luckily my wife is not a theatre artist.”
Yes, it is true that I and some of my friends and acquaintances have foreign accents but so do presenters at CBC. I want to hear stories with different accents and look at the stage that reflects the street.
This week we hear from the next generation of Canadian (?) directors.
Each is emerging from some of the most competitive directing programs in the country. Each has been given relatively the same instructions: What are your hopes for the theatre and your own work ?
I am struck by the fact that each finds hope or interest in non-English based theatre. Ted Witzel elaborates on his connection to German theatre, Jon Lachlan Stewart is an Albertan interested in bridging the divide between Anglophone and Francophone theatre, and Andreja Kovac as an immigrant from Slovenia considers the experience of other immigrants theatre-makers.
This to my mind is a welcome and healthy evolution to our craft. Many of our institutions have been based on English models. If we would like to progress from a provincial outpost to an international cultural centre, directors with a broad range of cultural influences is a great step in the that direction.
Laakkuluk: Sorry about my Internet issues. Northwestel – the bane of our existence in Iqaluit these days
Matthew: Northwestel was just getting you ready to chat about barriers
Amy: Who wants to start?
Laakkuluk: it’s a difficult question!
Matthew: Depends on the situation. If one is talking generally then there are few barriers. Talking to an individual about their work requires some decency.
Amy: First of all, I cannot really comment on theatre in Canada because I see so very little of it.
Laakkuluk: I feel the same – I’m in a bubble of theatre here in Inuit lands
Don Wright – Red Trench Redux
Amy: I can comment on theatre in Newfoundland. I think for me when it comes right down to it, empathy. Because I feel empathy for artists and their work. If I do not particularly like something it does not mean it is not worthy. There is always a backstory behind art. I know it is meant to be interpreted, but my interpretation may not be at all what the artist was going for, or why he/she did the work. The photo I sent was of a very controversial sculpture that used to hang in our Government Bldg, but was taken down because of some people’s interpretation! I sent a link to a story about it as well.
Matthew: I read the link- interesting story. Seems like a lot of people have expressed opinions about that work over the years. Somehow by being controversial, the piece made it easy for people to give opinions- especially poor opinions of the work and artist
Laakkuluk: Sometimes the common denominator in controversy is the ease in making derogatory remarks; look at any newspaper comment section.
Matthew: This subject made me think of the peer review process. That seems a place where opinions are expressed pretty freely and professionally. There are peers at the table, providing a professional atmosphere to the dialogue. The opinions are generally frank as there is a competition going on.
Amy: However, I have gotten results of reviews from our Arts council assessment jury and it has hurt my feelings. You cannot help but take it personally.
Matthew: Of course. And there is only dialogue amongst the advisory. The applicant does not get to dialogue with the assessors.
Laakkuluk: I do like the peer review process in academia – it’s been really helpful for me. Strangely enough that’s anonymous
Amy: It all comes down to opinion does it not?
Matthew: Yes, but to a degree subjectivity is kept to a minimum by the multiple peers on the advisory
Amy: One lives in hope! 🙂
Matthew: What stops me from expressing my opinions about the state of Canadian theatre is when I speak to an individual about their work, as was mentioned previously. If I know the artist I can express an opinion better. And if they seem receptive. The moment is important too; immediately following the show is not always best.
Laakkuluk: yes – after the show, everyone needs a period to float back down again
Amy: Good point. Time makes us all a little more objective.
Laakkuluk: Well – in some ways, my answer is really easy: our barrier here is that we don’t even have a theatre to comment on though there is a goodly amount of theatrical work.
Matthew: So when I ask you what do you think of the state of Canadian Theatre, your answer is no comment?
Laakkuluk: no
Matthew: OK, WDYTOTSOCT?
Laakkuluk: It would be that a major barrier to us having a vibrant theatre community to comment on is actually having physical space to make professional theatre
Matthew: I see that
Amy: Matthew, do you feel you know the state of theatre in Canada? Or have an opinion about?
Matthew: Well, as Laakkuluk’s answer indicates, we all give a regional or subjective opinion.
Laakkuluk: I think that one of the things that we’ve proved in our previous conversations is that we don’t know what Canada is, except that it’s the “middle bits”
Amy: The little middle bittles!
Laakkuluk: but that through our interconnectedness, we can cast a web of Canadaness
Matthew: From my perspective, I see a lot of stories and shows lately that are about the individual or from the individual perspective. So, for example- Winners and Losers and A Brimful of Asha. Both very different works, both from a supposedly very personal perspective. I saw a lot of work like that in the past year, so for me the state of CT right now is we’re all navel gazing a bit. That’s not meant to be a slight. It’s just what seems to be happening. And it is just my perspective.
Laakkuluk: that’s interesting. [That] follows the popular culture of individualism in Canada
Matthew: I know I am doing some of that with projects I am working on
Amy: how so, not knowing the shows I do not understand
Matthew: Well, instead of writing a well made play- three or five acts fiction, we’re writing and performing memoir or diary
Amy: Ah, interesting. Navel gazing!
Matthew: The work that seems to be succeeding at this is the highly personal universal tale.
Laakkuluk: It reminds of the struggle that some Inuit performers have with the concept of celebrity. Many Inuit performers work in a collaborative manner. For example throat singing is traditionally done in pairs and many people have made collaborative theatre projects – not one director, writer, actor but the Canadian media picks up on charismatic individuals to champion that work; sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes for the wrong reasons
Matthew: celebrity as a barrier
Laakkuluk: I suppose that means I’m saying that cultural differences in communication are a barrier
Matthew: ah
Amy: yes
Laakkuluk: and I suppose celebrity could be a barrier too, but I’m not sure of that
Amy: That is blowing my mind. I can not get my head around that . Celebrity comment.
Laakkuluk: also a lot of our young performers are eager to get celebrity status right now and it means that they don’t always get to hone their craft before they are out there
Amy: Ok, it’s clearer now. I see what you mean. Interesting. This community always found their legs in Theatre and then graduated, if you will, to film. But now, the young people seem to go right for film first! The thought is there is more $ in film. I believe.
Matthew: Now that we’ve had six chats together, perhaps we’ll be better at expressing our opinions of one another’s work when we finally have the chance to see each other’s work!
Laakkuluk: I can’t wait to see each other’s work. 🙂
Beau Dixon performs sound design live on stage in Rifles.
Last week playwright Tara Beagan and I got into an intriguing conversation on Facebook with Obsidian Theatre Artistic Director Philip Akin about barriers to theatre artists talking to each other about their work. There are numerous pitfalls to this in terms of alienating one’s peers for a myriad of reasons, but we all agreed that we ought to be better at talking to eachother about our work than we were.
A few days later, Tara, who once wrote a whole play with Praxis, texted me with some questions after a performance of our latest work, Rifles. Would I be interested in the sort of public critique of my own plays that only days ago I had lauded as necessary? Could I find a third person who had seen the performance on the same occasion to participate, so it would be more of a discussion?
This seemed a good and fair question to ask and so I agreed and sought out Emma Mackenzie Hillier, current Nightswimming Theatre Metcalf Foundation Dramaturgy Intern, who had also seen the show the same evening as Tara as well as the first version I directed as a Shaw Festival Director’s Project.
She agreed – and so we all gathered round our personal Facebook hearths, the evening after the play had closed, to have the discussion that follows below. I was going to edit it down, but I started to feel like what is awkward about this format was also interesting, so the conversation is preserved in whole:
Tara! I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at the LMDA Conference this past year and was quite moved by your speech. It’s a pleasure to e-meet you here.
curation/context is big and small: curation of the play by the producing companies, context in the theatrical ecology, context within an actor’s body of work, etc.
So, Michael, I’m curious about your choice to pick a play that is so political in its reference to economics in relation to war and why you feel that is an important play to put on our stages now?
Well I guess the reason I picked it more than anything is that it is anomalous for Brecht in that it is not like the rest of Epic Theatre; He called it and Aristotelean Empathy drama. Buut even so – you can’t escape Marxist underpinnings and primacy of economics in that paradigm.
In total honesty, I’ve seen two productions of Rifles directed by Michael. The first didn’t have the Orwell character on stage for the whole show.
In this production I really appreciated his presence as it opened up the war to me as something bigger than the town.
As an outsider, a Brit, he doesn’t belong to Spain. And by being there, wounded, he was a constant reminder of the danger that we know is present… but moreso.
I appreciate this. and im sure Nicolas would too, as I think that would gel with his goals for the character – but I still would like him to be more cohesive.
Because Brecht described this as Aristotelean I have been brushing up on what that means in terms of drama – a biggie is that there are no extraneous elements. Cohesive.
The first round, as Michael pointed out to me a few days ago, at Shaw had a lot of different Generals who were oppressing (read: mass murdering) the people of Spain. This edition had only one which simplified things considerably.
it was in a home, with a woman and her son and her bro. the soldier-type had little to no voice. i know pedro is fighting, but he felt of the grassroots.
priests always creep me out, so i wouldn’t call him one of The People. i can imagine seeing generals would be weird in this intimate setting.
andy moro wondered this – for a fella so moved and interested in Idle No More, why did you go as far away from home as old conflicts in spain?
Whenever the line “we’re poor” came to the surface, I disconnected from the argument. Except for its first use, every time those words were used after I was taken out of the very “realist” (with a musician on stage) world that I was watching. I felt as though the propaganda was getting in the way of the story being told.
I loved Theresa… I had a lot of compassion for her. She’s a very strong, beautiful, and stoic character. But whenever “I’m poor” was a response, the stoicism left for at least a fleeting moment.
he almost always did the pointing out thing – except it would be possible to do this one without that if you for give the speeches on class consciousness and the role of the poor/proletariat.
I think a critique should always include positive elements and I wanted to mention that I really enjoyed and appreciated the sound design / soundscape (sorry, this is off topic)
hmm. i know what you mean about it should be clean. a big design challenge is how do you reasonably hide 5 realistic rifles in a festival setting. we had to create something big for them to be reasonably camouflaged by. in a diff version would love to put them under floorboards. then lots could change.
