A Theatre for Canada

A Theatre for Canada - Mavor Moore In the Elegant Sayings of the Tibetan Lamas it is written: Not to be cheered by praise, Not to be grieved by blame, But to know thoroughly one's own virtues or powers Are the characteristics of an excellent man. By this standard Canadians are often thought to be past praying for in any creed. We look in the mirror and there is nothing there. Some sceptics have even suggested we have no mirror-that is, none or few of the arts reflective of our character, as these arts have reflected the character of other nations past and present. We own the world's most famous blank face. Now this may be considered no serious matter for anyone but the owner of the face, and indeed his concern with it is often inferred to be more cosmetic than cosmic. Much breath and ink are spent in controversy about the real nature of the face, most of it about as profitable as sorting maple leaves in a high wind. It serves only to obscure the paramount issue: that face is also a tabula rasa, and it is perhaps the most propitious on this distracted globe. Therefore the pattern that emerges on it, whether by accident or design, is of considerable consequence not only to ourselves but to our fellow men. The importance of the Canadian pattern to the rest of the world remains, perhaps, to be demonstrated decisively, but its importance to Canada is now being generally if belatedly recognized. The travels to Broadway and Europe of our Stratford Festival Company, the journeys of our opera and ballet companies and other groups, have focussed national attention on the Canadian theatre as never before. Individual artists in the field of literature, music, and the theatre (including mechanical theatre such as film) have long before this made international mark, but never before have large groups bearing the count 2 MAVOR MOORE try's name carried our reputation thus far afield. As we observe that thousands of intelligent and influential people in other countries judge Canada on the basis of theatrical representation, it dawns on even the most philistine that our achievements in this arena may conceivably be of serious moment to the country as a whole and not merely to a dilettante few. The Canadian theatre, therefore, like the stock-market, is bullish these days, and shares in our great national debate: whether to take the bull by the horns or the tail. Shall we lead the monster in our own way, or hang on while those with more experience chart our course for us? Surely the answer to this question should depend neither on dogmatic nationalism nor careless opportunism but on where we want to go, the value of that goal to ourselves and to all men, and our shrewd estimate of the wish and capacity of others to get us there. Both pro and con factions in the "Canadianism" controversy have helped becloud the atmosphere. The case for a distinctively Canadian culture has been kissed half to death by preciosity and chauvinism: by those who limit culture to the hot-house variety, and those who find the entire catalogue of human virtues singularly Canadian. And more often than not, earnest friends of the cause have fallen prey to a subtle boobytrap : desperately wishing us to be accounted civilized, they have accepted as the indices of civilization those jaded activities esteemed by a few older countries, and scorned the genninely fresh impulses among us which might, ironically, have produced the recognition they seek. This twin longing for both self-approbation and approval by the Board of Experts from Out of Town has caused much schizophrenia; as when a "Canadian" company from Stratford visits New York in a play by a sixteenth-century Englishman, staged by an Irishman, designed by an Englishman, music by a Scot, stage-directed by an Australian, and the two leading roles performed by an English actor and an Australian actress. Should we welcome this outside help, or should we spurn it on the grounds that it is not native, even if the native product is less impressive ? And what is a native...