The Work: Conversations with English-Canadian Playwrights ed. by Robert Wallace and Cynthia Zimmerman (review)

Book Reviews 151 However dissected these dramas may exit from Knapp's laboratory, I am sure there will be directors happy to have this book as a guide in their analyses of Claudel's theatre. MOSES M. NAGY, UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS ROBERT WALLACE AND CYNTHIA ZIMMERMAN, eds. The Work: Conversations with English-Canadian Playwrights. Toronto: Coach House Press 1982. Pp. 377, illustrated. $9.95 Can. (PB). The Work presents interviews with twenty-six living (though not necessarily still practising) English-Canadian playwrights. Four of these are of far greater interest for their launching of theatres than for their devising of scripts as such: Paul Thompson of Theatre Passe Muraille, Ken Gass ofFactory Theatre Lab, Martin Kinch ofToronto Free Theatre, and Tom Hendry of the Manitoba Theatre Centre and Toronto Free Theatre. The span of playwrights ranges from those who have now abandoned the theatre (Herschel Hardin, Lawrence Russell, and, at the time ofhis interview at any rate, Hrant Alianak) to those who are still regularly pouring forth new work (George F. Walker, John Gray, Sharon Pollock, Rex Deverell and David Fennario). There are also some who have shifted toward scripting for other forms: Michael Hollingsworth's transition to video is documented, for instance. The other playwrights interviewed are worth"listing simply to demonstrate the variety of achievements presented: Carol Bolt, Tom Cone, Michael Cook, Larry Fineberg, David French, Margaret Hollingsworth, Ken Mitchell, John Palmer, Erika Ritter, Sheldon Rosen, Rick Salutin, Bryan Wade and Tom Walmsley. The missing names are easily spotted - George Ryga,James Reaney, John Murrell and Jack Winter and/or George Luscombe would surely lead the list - and may be the victims either of unavailability or of elimination from the selection process. All in all, however, it's a lively group - engaging and spirited talkers responding to intelligent and well-researched interviewers. In several cases, indeed, a playwright's talk is much more stimulating, precise and persuasive than a playwright's plays: we may still talk a better theatre than the one we are actually able to put onto the stage. But, a few exceptions aside, in terms of the craft of writing, the realities and exigencies of the Canadian theatre and the larger perceptions of Canadian culture, they are an eloquent group. Many of the interviews fall into formulaic rhythms of questioning: why do you write plays? what experiences have you had in production? what is your feeling about workshops? have your plays been accepted into the repertoire nationally? what is the state of Canadian theatre at the moment? In many instances, too, Robert Wallace and Cynthia Zimmerman pursue fairly detailed analyses of some of the plays themselves, acting on the assumption - probably overly idealistic, I think - that the reader has an intimate familiarity with these scripts, or at least has the texts at hand. On some issues, there is astonishing consonance. It is very difficult to get even well-received plays to be accepted as repertory pieces in Canada. So many accomplished plays have not survived - except in script form - beyond their first productions. It is the grim joke of the Canadian theatre that it's much easier for a playwright to get a first production of his work than a second one. Consequently, what passes as "standard Book Reviews repertoire" is infinitesimal, and includes perforce such "Canadian" works as the plays of Bernard Slade, which are considered more transportable because of their Broadway imprimatur. In most cases, however, plays are kept within regional boundaries: hence the exclusive notions of a Vancouver play, or an Alberta play, or a Toronto play, or a Maritimes play. At times, the boundary may even be urban, or, more damagingly, the limitation of a one-theatre-only playwright. Artistic directors also feel burdened by the pressure (imposed by an as yet undefined system) to premiere work rather than re-produce it. Many playwrights represented in The Work, therefore, share the experience of seeing the product of perhaps two years' work receive a three-week run in a I50-seat theatre, get favorable reviews and then disappear into the black hole of Canada's theatrical repertoire. The question of workshops produces more controversy. Some writers, like Ken Mitchell, openly welcome the...