Drama

362 LEITERS IN CANADA 1978 poetes et les maisons d'edition que Ie manque de place et d'autres raisons incontr61ables nous cnt amene anegliger. Par exemple nous avons pris connaissance trop tard de l'importante retrospective du poete et chansonnier Gilles Vigneault, Silences: Poemes "957- "977, (Nouvelles Editions de l'Arc, 366). Quant aux jeunes des Ecrits des Forges de Gatien Lapointe a Trois-Rivieres ou aux nouvelles Editions paralloles de Marcel Belanger et Roland Bourneuf a Sainte-Foy, il faudra y revenir un jour. Nalls aurons aussi sans doute I'occasion de reparler de l'initiative originale de La Nouvelle Barre du jour: la publication de numeros speciaux de la revue sous forme de boiliers contenant deux ou trois plaquettes de poesie d'une quarantaine de pages chacune. A tous ceux-la et aux autres injustement oublies, nous repetons l'excuse classique du chroniqueur de lettres (manque de place, manque de temps) et nous promettons de faire mieux l'an prochain. Drama RONALD HUEBERT A year or so ago, unless you were among the cognoscenti of the Toronto theatre, you could be excused for never having heard the name George F. Walker. Today, thanks partly to the promotional interest shown by off-Broadway godfather Joseph Papp, Walker seems likely to become an overnight phenomenon if not an international celebrity. The rapid rise has been accompanied by the publication of a collection entitled Three Plays (Coach House Press, $5.00) and the script of Walker's biggest hit to date, Zas/rozzi: The Master of Discipline (Playwrights Co-op, $3 .50). The last and largest part of this year's review will be an introduction to the bizarre imaginative universe of this genuinely new Canadian dramatist. First, however, there are more familiar worlds to be explored. Les Canadiens (Talonbooks, $4.95) brings together two of this country's longstanding obsessions - NHL hockey and national unity. The playwright , Rick Salutin, handles these materials with a deft journalistic touch. Drawing on his experience as an analyst of the current cultural scene, a writer of documentary drama, and a hockey fan , Salutin proves that he is capable of producing a beguiling theatrical entertainment out of the legends of a familiar past and the events of an inescapable present. For assistance with technical questions about the hockey world where would a shrewd journalist turn? To Ken Dryden, naturally enough. Unlike many of our experimental plays Les Canadiens has found an enthusiastic audience. After tentative beginnings at Centaur Theatre in Montreal and Toronto Workshop Productions, the play has quickly won its way into the regional theatre repertoire from Vancouver to Halifax. DRAMA 363 The recent Neptune Theatre production may be taken as an index of those qualities which make Les Canadiens an eminently stageworthy play. Among the highlights of the production was a slow-motion sequence in which Rocket Richard, baited beyond endurance by a foulmouthed Leaf, finally loses control and swings his invisible stick with devastating results at the Leaf players and the referee. According to the stage directions the time clock during this scene should read '9:55, and the message board should say, 'Mange d'la merde.' A well-disciplined company of actors can, by using the techniques of mime and dance, invest many of the scenes in Les Canadiens with magnificent theatrical vitality. And the Brechtian conventions of documentary staging (the message board, etc) remain quite unobtrusive for a change, because the setting is the Forum in Montreal. In short, Les Canadiens stands apart from a great deal of contemporary drama simply because it is fun to watch. The full cultural aspirations of the play are less enticing than its theatrical polish. Two political events hover belligerently over the beginning and ending of the play- the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm in '759, and the victory of Levesque over everyone on '5 November 1976. In the Plains of Abraham scene English soldiers molest and murder a Quebec peasant who, dying with a burst of intuition, throws his rifle into the outstretched arms of his son where it magically becomes a hockey stick. This new weapon will be the key to French-Canadian identity in its sustained guerilla war against the...