Performing National Identities

by Grace, Sherrill; Glaap, Albert-Reiner

• ISBN13: 9780889224759
• ISBN10: 0889224757
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Talonbooks Ltd

Summary

If you have ever wondered why the Scots love Michel Tremblay or what Sharon Pollock has to say to Japanese audiences, or just how a Canadian play--or being Canadian--is viewed in England or the United States, you should read this volume. Each author holds a mirror up to Canadian theatre, but the images in those mirrors differ in fascinating ways. The cumulative result is a multi-faceted reflection, coming from some of the world's most astute critics, on how Canada performs its national identities. Performing National Identitiesis a collection of 18 original essays on contemporary Canadian theatre by scholars and drama specialists in Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Australia and Japan. The international scope of the volume, reflected in its co-editors (Sherrill Grace from Canada, Albert-Reiner Glaap from Germany), confirms the new importance of Canadian plays on the world stage. This is the first volume of its kind, and it celebrates the variety and vitality of Canadian theatre. Among the playwrights whose works are discussed here are Michel Tremblay, Sharon Pollock, George F. Walker, Joan MacLeod, Tomson Highway, Marie Clements, Michel Marc Bouchard, Morris Panych, Monique Mojica, and Djanet Sears. There are also interviews with theatre practitioners in Hungary, Germany and Canada, including one with the late Urjo Kareda. The contributors consider many of the challenging issues addressed by contemporary Canadian playwrights--issues of race and racist stereotypes, of gender and violence, of historical events and identity politics--and all agree that Canada's playwrights mine their local or individual situations to explore universal problems. It is this large vision, as well as the quality of the plays, that enables Canadian drama to move audiences all over the world.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	9	(2)
Acknowledgments	11	(2)
Texts and Contexts: An Introduction
Sherrill Grace and Albert-Reiner Glaap	13	(12)
PART 1: PLAYWRIGHTS AND THEIR WORKS
Performing Lives: Linda Griths and other Famous Women
Susan Bennett	25	(13)
Michel Tremblay in Scots: Celebration and Rehabilitation
Martin Bowman	38	(13)
Imagining Canada: Sharon Pollock's Walsh and Fair Liberty's Call
Sherrill Grace	51	(19)
"Some Kind of Transition Place Between Heaven and Hell": George Walker's Aesthetics of Hybridity in Heaven
Marc Maufort	70	(11)
A Different 'Othello Music: Djanet Sears's Harlem Duet
John Thieme	81	(11)
Joan MacLeod and the Geography of the Imagination
Jerry Wasserman	92	(15)
PART 2: PRODUCTIONS AND RECEPTION
Canadian Plays on a German Stage: A Production of Michel Marc Bouchard's Le Chemin des Passes-Dangereuses
Albert-Reiner Glaap	107	(23)
The Alarming/Boring Binary Logic of Reviewing English-Canadian Drama in Britain
Jen Harvie	130	(15)
Imagination Import: Reception and Perception of the Theatre of Québec in the United Kingdom
Colin Hicks	145	(15)
Theatre as National Export: On Being and Passing in the United States
Erin Hurley	160	(21)
Canadian Plays on the Japanese Stage
Yoshinari Minami	181	(17)
The Story of Morris Panych's 7 Stories in Hungary: A Documentary Production Analysis
Péter Szaffkó	198	(13)
Maintaining the Alternative: An Interview with Urjo Kareda
Cynthia Zimmerman	211	(16)
PART 3: MOVEMENTS AND ISSUES
Naming the Movement: Recapitalizing Popular Theatre
Alan Filewod	227	(18)
The Hearts of its Women: Rape, Residential Schools, and Re-membering
Ric Knowles	245	(20)
Performing History: The Reconstruction of Gender and Race in British Columbia Drama
Richard Lane	265	(13)
Can Weesageechak Keep Dancing? The Importance of Trickster Figures in the Work of Native Earth Dramatists, 1986-2000
Mark Shackleton	278	(11)
Yellow Claw, Yellow Fever, Yellow Peril: Performing the Fantasy of the "Asian Canadian"
Joanne Tompkins	289	(16)
Notes on Contributors	305	(5)
Index	310