Episode 6 of the SWSpodcast, where in your co-hosts Adrienne and Jacob talk about how Jacob’s show went at the Rhubarb Festival and then are joined by Nathan Medd to discuss the intricacies of messaging for large organizations, the relationship between research and development and product, and how to effect change – or if its even worth trying. iTunes | RSS
We also play a thought from SpiderWebShow.ca Resident Thinker for the month of February: Guillermo Verdecchia.
Listen to more HERE
I started tweeting in 2010. The National Theatre School of Canada, of which I am CEO, was about to celebrate its 50th anniversary and our communications department thought it would be important for me to open a Twitter account for the occasion.
At the same time, my essay Le FACTEUR C – L’Avenir passe par la culture (Les Éditions Voix parallèles), and its English translation, No culture, No future (Cormorant Books), was getting much public and media attention. As a consequence, I was requested to speak on numerous occasions at international arts conferences and forums. I quickly realized that Twitter was a great way to exchange and to get ideas circulating within the arts community in Canada and abroad.
My Twitter account grew quickly. Some 12,500 tweets later, I now have over 4,000 followers and I make a habit of tweeting several times a day. I tweet almost exclusively on the state and future of the arts, its value and its place in society.
I see myself as a conduit for content – articles, essays, blog posts or conference notes – which I personally find significant. I tweet to disseminate the information which helps feed the global conversation about the state of the arts. I sometimes tweet content with which I may not entirely be in agreement, but I communicate it anyway because I consider it important to further the debate on certain innovative views and ideas.
My Twitter feed is a mix of both French and English. As a rule, I first tweet in the language of the content I am passing along. If the article is in English and I feel it’s pertinent, I might then write another tweet in French on the subject for my Francophone followers. I find that it’s only then that they tend to retweet it and vice versa for Anglophones. It also happens that my followers translate my tweets as they retweet them to their own community.
I would never limit myself to using one language on Twitter. I also don’t translate my tweets systematically because I work in co-lingual organizations. The National Theatre School has both a French and an English section and for the past ten years, I have been vice chair of the Canada Council.
As far as translations go, I try to make sure that my own speeches are available in both English and French, i.e. on the Canada Council’s website.
A few of my other tweeting rules include rarely talking about my personal life, with the exception of some weekend activities. And if I see a show or an exhibit, I will mention that I am there, but I never criticize it on Twitter afterwards. I also never engage in tweet fights: Twitter is not a place to argue. Because of my role at the Canada Council and at the National Theatre School, I have a duty to show some reserve, so I never engage in partisan politics on social media.
The tone of my tweets ranges from factual to philosophical and sociological. I never use sarcasm and rarely humour, but I do like to follow people who excel in those genres.
I myself follow about 650 people: journalists, columnists, researchers and influential decision makers. I choose to follow someone because I know I will learn something by doing so but I am weary of people who tweet too much. I think a ratio of three tweets per follower is good; ten tweets per follower or more turns me off: it’s an indicator of lack of substance.
My first tweets are between 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. They are mostly news items from Europe – I’m a constant reader of The Guardian’s Culture section and I follow, among others, the cultural policy watch Twitter account @cultureveille. My second round of tweets occurs around 7 p.m. with primarily Canadian content.
Twitter is an essential part of my day and of the way I connect to the world. I absolutely love it!
[Matthew wrote: Hello folks, I am so sorry I missed the chat. I shall edit- as penance.]
Amy: Great photo. I’m jealous you always have the first and great photos!
Laakkuluk: ha ha – I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ham it up
Amy: Was gong to take a photo of my iphone with my ipad!
Laakkuluk: Or a picture of you checking your iphone while cooking supper?
Amy: Checking my iphone [while] making supper is only normal! Texting my daughter to see if she’s coming home to eat with us!
Laakkuluk: Isn’t that sort of answering the question at hand though?
Amy: Yes, our sense of place in the world, or in our family. About Art? I wonder if technology is used too much in live theatre now. Sometimes it just gets on my nerves… Sometimes I love it though. But it seems like cheating to be putting a lot of film in live theatre!
Laakkuluk: I know what you mean. It can either be really beautiful and appropriate or far too gimmicky. Where’s our main man on the west coast?
Amy: HMMMM, Matthew Where are you!!!! (echo echo) I haven’t seen any emails from him.
Laakkuluk: No – he hasn’t responded at all. Wonder if he’s under the weather, or travelling.
[Matthew’s note: No, I was in a government office.]
Laakkuluk: We’re having a “summit” on the spoken word this weekend
Amy: Ah, yes, the poets are arriving. Exciting. Will they all be using their ipads and laptops…technologies…word processors.
Laakkuluk: Definitely the young ones. We’re going to be learning about looping pedals over the weekend. The elders will just be using their incredible intellects to tell their stories! Most of my work starts off as a poetry exercise.
Amy: Wish I could be there for that. I just sent Matthew an email to see if he’s coming.
[Editor’s note: I am not coming.]
Amy: Oh, that’s an interesting way to start a project. Like you articulate it in words, poetry.
Laakkuluk: Yes – that’s usually what happens – words and poetry come first
Amy: I would love to come there. I would love to be out on the skidoos and the food. YUM! Is that how most artists there work? Start with poetry? Hand written or on a computer?
Laakkuluk: I think that’s something we’re going to explore this weekend. I use both. My dad used to talk about hunters he was friends with that couldn’t start their day without composing a poem.
Amy: Yes I know some writers who find a better connection when they handwrite. Oh that is amazing. How beautiful.
Laakkuluk: What romantics, eh?
Laakkuluk: How do you start your projects?
Amy: How do I start? An idea, a character first usually. I find the character then write in her/his voice. But I do it on computer. When I try to write artistically by hand I get very messy and big. So it is more productive on the computer. But to create the character after it is written, I like to be on my feet or in a chair depending on what the character is doing and be oral, speak out loud, find the voice, etc.
Laakkuluk: Like a personality who then starts a story?
Amy: Yes a personality who tells their story somehow.
Laakkuluk: There’s a need to move around to develop characters isn’t there, and then settle down in a chair to get their story out.
Amy: I wrote a piece, an old lady and realized a long time after I created her voice and her accent that I was channelling my grandmother! Amazing
Laakkuluk: Wow – did you feel connected to her after you realized that?
Amy: Connected? It was a revelation really. The character’s name is Ida, and her husband’s name is Gus. Much later I realized my aunt and uncle are Gus and Ida. Things come from the subconscious obviously! From our own real stories, roots, without even trying. I am sure that is true for your art, yes?
Laakkuluk: We move in cycles of recognition and repetition and the art is in making it your own
Amy: Explain.
Laakkuluk: A little while ago, my mother gave me a picture of me at the age of six or so, wearing a Greenlandic national costume and we put it next to a picture of my own daughter wearing the same outfit. The pattern of sameness and difference between the two of us was so touching. We recognize ourselves in the past and in the future and we do it over again, but in our own manner.
Amy: The grandmother I emulate was an actor in her own right in her time. In concerts!
Laakkuluk: It seems like technology and increasing technology use doesn’t really change this pattern of recognition.
Amy: Not yet. What about the next generation I wonder.
Laakkuluk: Did you hear the CBC piece on how all the screen time we get is rewiring kids’ brains?
Amy: I did not catch it all, but yes, I have been hearing that buzz around me. I always have CBC on somewhere! So, do you think your children’s art will be highly influenced by technology?
Laakkuluk: I’m sure my children will use technology in ways I never imagined.
Amy: How about your art? Do you use technology to create it?
Laakkuluk: I definitely do not use as much technology as my collaborators, but I suppose that’s why we collaborate – I add something and they add something.
Amy: I love to collaborate when making art. I like to work like that. Collectively. I like to feed off others, and vice versa, I like to think!
Laakkuluk: it’s the best way of making art – collaborating!
Amy: My daughter says our generation have no problem solving skills because when something goes wrong with the computer we back away and yell and jump up and down!
Laakkuluk: I remember thinking the same with my dad and the VCR and the “oven that emits radiation” as he called it.
Amy: A friend of mine in Stephenville, she’s French, she called it the miracle wave!
Laakkuluk: ha ha – good one!We do not have one collaborator named Matthew, whatsoever it seems.
Amy: I KNOW! What’s up with that/him, I wonder. I hope he is ok.
[Matthew’s note: I’m fine.]
Laakkuluk: Has he emailed us back at all?
Amy: But for you, dance, partners are so wonderful.
Laakkuluk: Yes – definitely!
Amy: No. no word from Matthew. Strange. Now I’m worried
[Matthew’s note: Ah, thanks.]
Amy: Talk about how you create dance with partners. Do you ever use technology there?
Laakkuluk: We use sound effects to make soundscapes and music
Amy: Soundscapes from computers or from live sounds?
Laakkuluk: We also use lighting and projections to make the scenes
Amy: Yes, I can see that
Laakkuluk: Mostly live sounds it seems over the years but we’ve worked with recorded sound too. When you start playing around with live throat singing – with reverb and alterations it can get very spooky and surreal.
Amy: Yes. I would love to see that. Experience it. I have seen throat singers move me to tears. I have also seen some who do not. Sorry to say!
Laakkuluk: The good ones are so lovely
Amy: Do you think we talked about technology, our art and how it has influenced our sense of place?
Laakkuluk: Yes – I think we really did touch on the subject. I like how we talked about how our brains and art-making use names and characters from our families and pasts to make sense in the present.
[Matthew’s note: Oops. I think I cut some of that.]
Amy: Yeah. It ultimately comes from the heart and psyche!
Laakkuluk: And that we seem to collaborate in this process of repetition and recognition to use technology to emphasize the heart and psyche.
My 16 month-old son plays with his Gramma in Calgary via Skype.
We live in wired times.
On the table as I write this there is one laptop, an iPad and an iPhone. Another laptop plays the NHL “outdoor” classic in the living room. Another iPhone lights up with banter from the westcoast via text message.
All this technology makes it possible for my son to know his grandparents. To hear their voices and play games of pee-a-boo and patty-cake. And as a freelancer from home with a small kid – the computers and wireless and video chats makes work possible. I have meetings every day with collaborators living all over the country from my kitchen. Family, friends and colleagues visit me every day and when they “leave” all I need to do is close the laptop. There are no dishes.
All this web-based technology collapses geographic space between people. It’s not perfect. But it does trick my brain into thinking that I’m there with you – or you are here with me – or we are somewhere in the middle. Together. When my collaborator answers my video call and his image comes up, I feel as though I’ve opened the door to another room in my own house. The wall of framed photos behind his head are familiar and homey.
This, to me, is the great strength of online technology: to bring people together. Just like the theatre brings audience and artists into one space. Except that, online, the spaces we inhabit together are virtual spaces – quantum spaces – built of ones and zeros, and the intention of our consciousnesses reaching out towards each other. Inside the radically malleable black box of online theatre, anything can happen – so long as you know how to write the code.
The work we are doing in the Experiments wing of the SpiderWebShow just barely scratches the surface of what I sense is possible for theatrical storytelling online. Each piece of content is contemplating the question: what happens when theatre makers’ sensibilities are expressed using online tools?
SAHTheatre – first meeting of the #SAHTheatre team via Google Hang-Out, (from left) Emelia Symington Fedy, Adrienne Wong, Caitlin Murphy, and the Dread Pirate Michael Wheeler. Arrrr.
This weekend we are launching Stay At Home Theatre – an experiment in long-form improvisation performed on Twitter using the hashtag #SAHTheatre.
Anyone who tweets knows that, at it’s best, Twitter is ideal for short, pithy stories – windows into an individual’s every day life. It’s also a format that lends itself to conversational exchange, small eddies of intimacy within an ocean of chatter. With collaborators Caitlin Murphy and Emelia Symington Fedy, we are trying to collect stories from Twitter users who are doing something very difficult, i.e. being artists raising children.
Mainstream media culture focuses on the “mommy wars”, the tensions that exist between a range of different parenting philosophies. It would be easy to use this scenario to create conflict between our online characters (who are us, only pithier). Instead we want to reveal character and relationship through community, collaboration, and mutual support. How intimate the revelations are will depend on each artist (Emelia has already set the bar high with this photo of her breastfeeding a baby goat). We invite other parents to join the conversation using #SAHTheatre.
The SWS Podcast continues, hosted by me and Jacob Zimmer from Small Wooden Shoe. Once a week, Jacob and I hook up microphones to our laptops, meet up on Skype and talk about what we’re thinking about, which often turns out to be theatre, and the theatre community in Canada. We’ve talked about original practices Shakespeare, design-based thinking, contemporary dance in Brooklyn, using surveillance on ourselves, our audiences, our children, and what we think is wrong with the way theatre is practiced in Canada right now. We try to come up with some strategies to make things, if not perfect, then at least better.
The experiment: is anybody listening? (Answer: yes, a few. Maybe more each week? Hard to say.)
Documenting inaugural #SWSpodcast, with Jacob Zimmer. Featuring my kitchen and Jacob’s studio at the Banff Centre.
Jacob and I are interested in cultivating critical dialogue within our community of theatre-makes. Yes, about the work, but also about larger topics like how resources are allocated and who feels silenced and how can we meet ideals for guaranteed minimum wages? We hope the SWS Podcast can play a part in increasing dialogue and deepening the thoughtfulness of what’s being said. We are hoping that, like this guy, if we just start dancing with our shirts off everyone will join in because it just looks like so. much. fun.
And then there are the Sonic Postcards – a collaboration between myself and sound designer/composer Troy Slocum. I recently moved to Ottawa from Vancouver. I send something I miss about Vancouver to Troy, he makes a audio field recording and then Iwrite some narrative and hopefully link everything together. We can send you a sonic postcard, too. Let us know what you miss and where it is. We welcome your input, because frankly, I’m beginning to feel self-conscious about how much of me there is on the Experiments page.
This where you come in.
I invite you to browse our Experiments. Listen to the podcasts and the sonic theatre, read through the twitter feeds. Google “twitter theatre” and “digital art”. Perhaps you’d like to try your hand at one of these forms. Or perhaps your hand is reaching towards a form that hasn’t been named yet.
We have space in the Experiments wing of the SpiderWebShow. We can connect you with Graham Scott, a digital dramaturg / web designer, who can help turn your idea into ones and zeros. We have an established (and growing) network of makers, supporters and readers with whom to share your work. We will only understand how theatre and technology work together by making things and letting them fail or succeed. Join us in these experiments.
Email proposals to me at spiderwebshow@gmail.com, and put “experiment” in the subject line.
In 1999, I took the course, “Computing for arts students” at McGill University. The first assignment, for 5% of my total grade, was to successfully email my professor. I got 5/5.
Fast forward 15 years and I send about 30 of those a day, when I’m not uploading blog posts, tweeting, using Facebook or listening to podcasts. I can’t imagine what the curriculum of that course would be now. (Note to self: Pitch a course to McGill.)
In this edition of #CdnCult Times, our contributors address how technology has become a part of their artistic practice: Simon Brault as an arts leader and advocate, our Geographic Correspondents as artists across Canada, and Adrienne Wong as the director of multiple experiments with technology on this site.
Definitely things are changing. Leave a comment on a post, or tweet with #CdnCult to discuss what this adoption of new technologies means for your connection to the arts.
Episode five of the SWS Podcast in which Adrienne Wong and Jacob Zimmer discuss performing live to tape, applying bio-data collection techniques to theatre, placing the user at the centre of the experience, and the changes to the Canada Council’s Awards to theatre operating companies. iTunes | RSS
CHËYIKWE PERFORMANCEThe Place Between Photo Credit: Jamie Griffiths Performers (L to R): Penny Couchie, Julie Tamiko Manning * World Premiere, Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver, 2004
This moment is an invitation: An open door leading to a cup of tea and a bowl of homemade soup.
This Moment #1: I am a child, a teen, a young woman, listening to my father speak of our Beginning – how the four corners of the world were folded up and inside all that rolling mud, woman and man were made to walk side by side, as equals; the only difference being that women are the Life Givers. I am made in the image of our Mother who, as the Earth, is responsible to sustain and nourish. My responsibility is to contribute to this cycle of care. Women’s knowledge is sacred; what we know will ensure man’s survival. A woman’s power comes from the earth. Pants interfere with this connection, which is why we wear skirts for ceremony. “In a sense, feminism wrecked women’s relationship to their own power,” my father says sadly. “Men have forgotten their place.”
My introduction to my female-self was ceremonial. My introduction to my artist-self was less about affirming a woman’s power and more about learning to accommodate, acquiesce to, and affirm a euro-driven hierarchy along with phallocentric models of performance, criticism, and theory. The act of melding these ideas into my artistic practice has become a political one. This is a feminist impulse. Each project is an opportunity to address the tension I experience inside this political act.
This Moment #2: I am a woman, one of two artist/ playmakers invited to teach Indigenous performance methods in a small Eastern European country. My colleague, who is established relative to my emerging, is also Cree. It becomes apparent that his intention is to lead. My role seems to be to stand at his side as silent witness. My frustration grows. The day after our second session, we walk as he reflects on what he hopes people learned, what I witnessed, and whether he over-stepped in any way. It hits me: our process in this studio is not just artistic, it is defined by our cultural relationship.
In this scenario, my cultural responsibility as a woman is to ‘hold the room’ – to support my colleague and keep him accountable, and to ensure protocols are followed so that the space is respectful and inclusive. I know this role well – as my father’s Helper. Cultural connections become foremost in defining my artistic process. For people to be equal, they don’t have to be doing the same thing. Our power is different, not ‘more’ or ‘less.’
The World Is The World BLAM COLLECTIVE:: Performers: Lisa C. Ravensbergen, Darren Dolynksi * work-in-progress showing, Talking Stick Festival, Vancouver, 2011. Photo Credit: Chris Randle
Understandings of “feminism” are as non-consensual as understandings of “Indigenous perspectives.” The way feminism reflects itself in my work is as unique as the way I interpret and practice my culture. My feminist art practice exists even if it’s not recognizable or aligns with the normative assumptions about what feminism is. Each project takes me one step farther away from an obligation to measure the worth of my own feminist practice against a politik that does not always feel authentic to my cultural practice.
CHËYIKWE PERFORMANCE: The Place Between Performers (L to R): Aura Carcueva, Falen Johnson, Maria Christina James, Julie Tamiko Manning * Native Earth Performing Arts, Toronto, 2007. Photo Credit: Nir Bareket
This Moment #3: I am a mother, a writer in the throes of life, haunted by another draft that isn’t going anywhere. My dramaturg has ridden her bike across town and seventeen blocks up a mountain so she can sit at my table and discuss my play. She sips her tea as I prepare our lunch – a soup that will later warm my family’s bellies. I apologize for everything; for not working fast enough, for ineptly writing simple scenes, for making her wait, for the mess of my house, for the effort it took for her to get here – all so that I can more easily pick my child up from school. We pause. She quietly asks about my writing and process. I tell her about this world of three women I am creating. It is a story of stolen children, lost identities, and a grandmother who is really a lost owl spirit, waiting for redemption. We find this rhythm that works; a ritual guided by the slicing of my knife, by the wiping of my hands, by her tasting of the spices, the stories of my family, the psalms along with my father’s traditional teachings – all in symphony with her internet research. Here I use my knowledge to embody this role now set inside a familiar domestic ceremony – one she and I will return to time and time again over the next year or so. She calls it “kitchen dramaturgy.” I accept this. I see how this now – this too – is my work: to be witnessed in the melding of my living-life and artist-life, as only a woman can.
Our first impulse as creators is to witness. Our primary action is to respond from our artist-selves. In this process, we also name our other-selves – the woman, the woman of colour, the woman empowered. I can support a process as *I* must – as a First Nations woman or not. It means that my work inevitably flips Aristotle the bird. Women speak the words I write, and dance the dreams I tell. Ceremony lies at the root of every question. I mix worldviews in an ancient pot and stir it until the flavours assume their own temper. I discover what I’m making as it’s being made. And I share it as best I can.
Acknowledgements: Walter Cook, Elaine Avila, Heidi Taylor, Dylan Robinson, Jeff Harrison, Isaac Thomas. Chi Miigwetch – Thank you so much for your guidance and assistance.
Simone de Beauvoir (pictured here with Sartre), never afraid of a little controversy.
I’m going to have to acknowledge from the outset, here, all the conspicuous and morally ticklish not-so-niceties which are necessarily involved when a grotesquely privileged, white, heterosexual, cisgender (I’m sure someone will correct my use of that particular neologism), Canadian male writes about the problems of feminism in art. This is not intended as irony. Doubtless I place myself squarely in the sights of a particular kind of lefty scorn, appropriation-of-voice-wise, to say nothing of the dubiousness of my targeting (isn’t there a tag in The Second Sex about it not occurring to a man to write about what it means to hold the condition of being a man in society?). Well, all’s fair in the gender wars. I admit my undeserved privilege and surrender the field.
There are (at least) two ways to consider this question, and they’re interrelated but crucially different; on the one hand is the issue of feminist entelechy in the theatre world – i.e., the quantifiable by-the-numbers stuff about women’s gross underrepresentation among the ranks of regularly produced playwrights, directors, and routinely hired ADs – and on the other, more ephemeral questions of feminist aesthetic: what is a feminist play, and do we have a moral responsibility to make them?
The first issue is enjoying a long-overdue vogue in the theatre community’s rank-and-file; vide the recent “Summit” conference in DC, and the Twitterverse’s real-time tweet-slap of Round House Theatre AD Ryan Rilette for some rather dodgy comments he made about women playwrights. The second is somewhat more obscure, and I think deserves to be interrogated very seriously. I recently wrote a blog post responding to Darrah Teitel’s criticism of Michael Healey’s script Proud on the SpiderWebShow Feminist Issue 1.0. I was interested not in the accuracy of that criticism, but in the ethical/aesthetic presumptions which underlie it. I continue to be so; as a writer who has myself made conscious effort to write big parts for women, the fear of the “misogynist” label is never far from mind. This is not the ideal condition under which to write. I quoted on my blog, and quote here again, Ms. Teitel’s friend Adam Nayman:
Representation of women with power are as problematic as representations of women without, mostly because they are written and directed by men.
Double-binds are a particular neurotic cathexis for me, but few yield the kind of artistic despair this does. Nayman is of course correct – but what then? Should we not write them? And what, actually, makes these representations so problematic, other than just the fact they were written by men? There are reasons why the Barthesian tradition advocates the reading of texts anonymously (technically, advocates “The Death of the Author”). The moral/political baggage we bring to a text when we know its supposed “source” necessarily colours our reading – this is as true for the critic who savages a novel because it was written by a woman as it is for interpretations of female characters written by men.
Now before my inbox gets inundated with hate mail, let me just say that this does not at all mean that those readings are wrong or invalid. Quite the contrary; for someone to say that a play is misogynist is a perfectly good and probably defensible interpretation. But this cuts both ways – that is the fundamental problem of interpretation in art, and it makes it extremely difficult to create aesthetico-ethical prescriptions.
In other words, if it’s true that negative portrayals of women in art can and do lead to negative treatment of them (and that sure seems true to me), it seems, on its surface, logical that we ought to affirm the principal that writers have an ethical responsibility to create characters which adhere to feminist ideals. But here, I think, we reach an impasse. What would such characters be and look like? Who is prepared to offer and defend such a schema? And how do we reconcile this moral principle with the fundamental aesthetic problem of what Barthes called the “irreducible plurality” of meaning?
This is fascinating question for a writer like myself because it demonstrates what I’ve always believed to be true: that what seems like just abstruse and cerebral semiology has, in fact, real-world ethical implications. Aesthetic inquiry does not dwell just in the suburbs of academics and the idly curious, but is in fact crucial for better understanding art’s place as a political and cultural institution.
Even if you aren’t convinced by the theories of Paul de Man or Roland Barthes, it seems (at least to me) hard to deny that we can’t define a feminist aesthetic purely through negation. If we’re going to affirm that artists have moral responsibility in their art, it is not enough to simply address a trillion particulars and deem this or that “misogynist.” If we’re going to be prescriptive, then we have to be specific. What is a feminist aesthetic?
This seems an unanswerable question to me. Perhaps my admittedly rather glacial processes of intellection just aren’t up to the task. Nevertheless, however much I might like to say that we should expect artists to lead the vanguard of moral clarity not just as individuals but in their art, I cannot. The cliché that art is better at asking questions than answering them turns out to be true: as Peter Handke once wrote, “[theatre is] no good at all at when it comes to suggesting solutions, at most it is good for playing with contradictions.” These contradictions are what facilitate conversation, what foster dialectic, what gives rise to righteous rage. There were fistfights in the lobby after the premiere of Oleanna, a play many – including myself – have called “misogynist.” But misogynist or not, it mattered to the audience, it moved them, made them feel far more intensely than, say, a film like 12 Years a Slave, which for all of its earnest poignancy and moral clarity is ultimately a work of art that challenges the audience not one jot. Yes, slavery is bad. Thanks. So too is misogyny. But I’m not sure I go to the theatre or the cinema to be reminded of this. Moral prescriptions for the theatre are as deadly whether they come from the right or the left.
This is not an appeal to moral relativism in art, but rather an observation of how the interpretive process of art tends to work. I certainly would never wish to say that reviews like Teitel’s critique of Proud shouldn’t be written – in fact, the opposite. Teitel’s review is a really interesting and useful work; I’m merely suggesting that, for example, perhaps the very fact that a play like Proud can inspire such a response makes the play worthwhile, that controversy and moral ambiguity – even moral confusion – are not deficits in a work of art, but the very things that make it interesting and valuable.
Might a “feminist aesthetic” mean an aesthetic which embraces such controversy, which thrives in it?
Richard III at The Startford Festival starring Seana McKenna. Photo David Hou
Women in Canadian theatre are an oppressed majority, and it’s everyone’s problem that a group of people who make up 51% of the population and 59% of audiences are still underrepresented onstage and backstage*. I am arguing for an active approach to gender equality in theatre.Even if your company’s mandate is to produce classical plays by “dead white guys” and you have a mostly male ensemble, you can still play a part. If artists continue to assume that it’s “someone else’s fight”, this problem won’t be resolved soon. In order to achieve gender parity in theatre we need to get all theatres involved (not just self-branded “feminist” companies), we need to start telling more “people’s stories” as well as “women’s stories”, and audiences must be made aware of the disparity so they can join the conversation.
Many theatre creators focus on increasing the number of “women’s stories” onstage. While I certainly agree that we need more plays written by women and with female creative teams and casts, that is only part of the solution. The term “women’s stories” is also limiting; referring to all work that includes the perspectives and experiences of women as “women’s stories” suggests that plays with female characters are a niche market. Furthermore, the term implies that stories about women are separate from stories about men, which actually re-ingrains the gender binary. The general branding of “women’s stories” is what leads to seasons with one all-female show and five more shows that hardly involve women. This is connected to the larger cultural concept that women can identify with male protagonists, but men cannot identify with female protagonists; a concept which is played out in theatre when some directors happily produce 400-year-old plays about murderers and kings set 1000 years ago on a different continent, but the same directors express hesitation about “connecting with” the characters in female-driven plays. As well as producing more “women’s stories”, theatres should find ways to transform some of the many “men’s stories” they produce into “people’s stories”.
Theatres’ desire to change can often be hindered by financial concerns. There are many well-known, beautifully written, male-authored classical plays that feature mostly/entirely male characters. These plays often have better name recognition with audiences, making them less of a financial risk. However, a company with a season full of classical plays can (and should) still play a role in gender parity. Most obviously this can be done through the inclusion of women (and people of colour) on the creative team, and through colourblind/genderblind casting. While non-traditional casting might not make sense for all plays, it’s important to evaluate whether this kind of casting actually doesn’t work in your production, or if it’s been dismissed for a superficial reason.
Diane D’Aquila as Sorina in Peter Hinton’s The Seagull at The Segal Centre. Photo: Andrée Lanthier
A recent example of genderblind casting is Peter Hinton’s production of The Seagull at the Segal Centre this month, in which Diane D’Aquila played the role of Sorina (originally Sorin), giving the show a balanced cast of 5 women and 5 men. Another Hinton production that comes to mind is his 2008 staging of Taming of the Shrew at the Stratford Festival in which Lucy Peacock played a female Grumio. The Festival also produced Miles Potter’s Richard III in 2011 starring Seana McKenna. In these stagings, women were given more stage time and agency without the productions being branded (one might even say “dismissed”) as “women’s stories”- although whether that is because of the male directors, the fact that only one role was switched in each case, or the superstar actresses involved is up for debate.
Some directors who do not engage in genderblind casting suggest that audiences aren’t invested enough in gender equality onstage, and would be confused by it**. However, if audiences aren’t vocal about this issue, it’s at least partly because they aren’t aware of the inequality onstage and backstage. Growing up watching theatre, film and tv, audiences have been trained to accept mostly-male casts as normal. Theatres should take responsibility to inform their audiences about the gender inequality (or equality) in their productions.
Even with a play like Waiting for Godot (which legally cannot be performed by women), theatres can still contribute by raising audience awareness. One strategy that could be used is the creation of a basic notation system in theatre programs- sort of a diversity “report card” in the vein of Sweden’s new feminist rating system for films . This system could be a section of the program that breaks down statistics about diversity on and offstage, including the number/variety of women (and people of colour) represented onstage; and how they are represented. This system would increase audience awareness about gender imbalance, and could be used to track progress over seasons.
In addition to a program notes system, there are many other ways to encourage feminist dialogues about a production. For example, to complement classic plays in their seasons, theatres could stage readings of a feminist/female playwright’s adaptation (ex: a reading of Djanet Sears’ Harlem Duet to complement a staging of Othello). Another way to inform the audience could be creating a lobby display or website page that looks at the play’s history/characters/themes/ from a feminist perspective.
This article is not meant to discredit theatre pieces that are “women’s stories” or “men’s stories”, both of which are necessary and important in a balanced culture. However, whether or not it is intended, companies that choose to produce seasons of only “men’s stories” without comment are contributing to the symbolic annihilation of women. If theatre creators of all genders can work together to create more “people’s stories”, as well as “women’s stories”, and invite audiences to join in the conversation, the problem of gender equality in theatre might become a problem of the past.
