Professional Doodling

Review article ProfessionalDoodling KEITH GAREBIAN Don Rubin and Anton Wagner, eds., Directory ofCanadian Theatre Schools 1981-82. CTR Publications, 68 pp., $3.50. Don Rubin, ed., Canada on Stage 1980-81. CTR Publications, 383 pp., $21.95. Toby Gordon Ryan, Stage Left: Canadian Theatre in the Thirties. CTR Publications, 239 pp., $15.95. According tO the Directory of Canadian Theatre Schools, there are over a hundred theatre schools, which include conservatories, graduate and undergraduate training spaces, community colleges, special studios, labs, and ateliers. Some of the big names in Canadian theatre teach at them. Patrick Crean is fencing instructor at the National Theatre School in Montreal; Gordon Peacock handles theatre aesthetics at the University of Alberta; Robertson Davies lectures on British drama at the Uriiversity of Toronto; Mavor Moore e~pounds on Canadian theatre at York University ; Murray Laufer has been guest costume and set designer at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts; John Neville coaches actors at Dalhousie; while Jack Medhurst offers mime and makeup at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. Clearly, then, our the3tre schools are alive and busy, and considering our very brief history in indigenous theatre, are doing a good job at producing a substantial number of fine actors and technicians who can hold their own in international company. Certainly, nobody would argue against the spectacular talents of Christopher Plummer, Kate Reid, Martha Henry, or Brent Carver in acting (although not all of these came out of a school), or demean the considerable merits of Murray Laufer, Astrid Janson, Michael Eagan, or Michael J. Whitfield in set, costume, or lighting design. Why, then, does Canadian theatre become the butt of ridicule in Europe or the United States? Why are so many of our audiences often naive and unable to cope with any theatre that treats life as something other than a cabaret performance, old-fashioned vaudeville, or pop naturalism? I can only begin to suggest some answers to these nagging questions, and my accusing finger points firmly to many of our critics, historians, playwrights, and artistic directors who, suspicious of elitism in the arts, democratize mediocrity in the guise of cultural nationalism . In a country where commissions of inquiry are the order of the ·day and where patronage takes the form of a govenment industry, nationalism has become the sacred norm in our theatre; our critics and historians , responding to the loon cries of many of our Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 17, NO. 2 (Etr! 1982 Summer) playwrights, are desperate for the Great Canadian Drama. Eager to find our very own Chekhov, Sean O'Casey, or Tennessee Williams, they have turned inarticulate dramatists into SIGNIFICANT artists. Anxious to have authentic Canadian myths, they have pumped up some. of our leading sports figures, wartime pilots, and incompetent politicians to the stature and size of Hollywood idols. In Canadian theatre, the past is not deep, and the present is but a cultural circus for non-discriminating patrons. Our critics and historians add to the tn,1.vesty by doodling for popular approval, content in their conviction that in a country of the culturally myopic, the one-eyed voyeur is king. Each year, the Canadian Theatre Review publishes its record of professional productions in Canada, and each year the record grows more appalling in' its benevolent mediocrity. Don Rubin is an intelligent, energetic editor who has set an ambitious mission for himself and the CTR, and I do not intend to denigrate his attempt to give Canadian theatre a position of significant visibility in our culture. His latest yearbook, Canada on Stage, 1980-81, has value as a consumer report or literal chronicle. Profusely illustrated with over three hundred black and white stills, it lists some seven hundred productions staged over a sixteen-month span and carries reports from all the provinces by local critics. However, even within its own terms, it is a shockingly shallow overview that has nothing to offer the professional interested in aesthetics or production details. Don Rubin offers his customary introduction in his customary polemical tone, and although his attitude towards his bete noir, Robin Phillips, has mellowed a little, it mirrors cultural politics more than it does Canadian theatre. For Rubin, Canadian theatre is...