20 Canadian Anglophone and Francophone Plays

Mr. Rindon Kundu

Contents

1. Introduction
2. English-Canadian Drama in Post-contact period
3. Nineteenth Century Anglophone-Canadian Drama
4. Anglophone-Canadian Theatre after the World War I
5. Anglophone-Canadian Theatre after the World War II
6. French-Canadian Drama Before 1837
7. French-Canadian Plays from 1837 to 1900
8. French-Canadian Drama from 1900 to 1948
9. French-Canadian Drama from 1948 to 1968
10. French-Canadian Theatre from 1968 to present
11. Summary

About the chapter:

This module starts with defining the terms like ‘English-Canadian’ and ‘French-Canadian’ and what is English-Canadian about English-Canadian literature as well as French-Canadian about French-Canadian literature? Jonathan Weiss and Jane Moss in their book French- Canadian Literature (1996) have noted that the term ‘French-Canadian’ most appropriately refers to the “literature of Québec” as well as refers to the literature of ‘French Canada’, that is, the entire Québec and other French-speaking parts of Canada before the 1960s. At this time there was a strong nationalist sentiment running throughout Québec and the adjectival French term ‘québécois’ has replaced the term ‘French-Canadian’. The ‘English-Canadian’ writer and the ‘French-Canadian’ writer have different experiences in Canada and the second one’s experience is longer than the first. If we go by the language of the literary texts then should we bracket them as a part of English literature or French literature?

Introduction

The scholar Northrop Frye, doubtless one of Canada’s most celebrated intellectuals (and exports), writes of this relationship between region and culture: “Culture has something vegetable about it, something that increasingly needs to grow from roots, something that demands a small region and a restricted locale.”ii Canadian culture is not so much a single or composite entity as it is a series of regional responses, each born of the myriad circumstances of a place as these are imagined by the writer. Frye continues: “What was an inarticulate space on the map is now responding to the world with the tongues and eyes of a matured and disciplined imagination.”iii I will begin this module with a quotation that problematizes the French-Canadian identity. Jean Bouthillette, in his seminal book titled Le Canadien français et son double (The French-Canadian and His Double), published in 1972, wrote, “The Canadian identity is a mirror which reflects the image of the Other when we look at ourselves in it.” In other words, the French-Canadians want to present themselves directly rather than representing through the mirror of a homogenous Canadian identity. For this the French speakers, especially those are involved in literature and cultural fields, redefined themselves as ‘Québécois’ and around 1970s this adjectival term becomes a vehicle of nationalist identity. The vast literature that is coming out of Québec shows that there are things common, common reality, common themes and above all a common language – French, which can give the Québec literature its own identity. In spite of having differences in writing the term Québec literature demands its separate entity vis-à-vis English-Canadian literature. Québec literature at the present time has been given diverse names like, Francophone literature of Canada or North American literature written in French.

English-Canadian Drama in Post-contact period

The earliest performances in Post-contact period took place in the 16th and 17th century. Morris dancing, and Maygames (“to delight the Savage people”) performed in 1583 by the crew of Sir Henry Gilbert’s ship in St. John’s harbor is trhe first recorded performances on Canadian soil. But these performances have hidden agendas of colonization as the Europeans wanted to cater the taste of the native Canadians by whatever means possible.

Around 18th century military officials, armies and local bourgeoisie class together adapted English dramas and performed in front of the natives to make them understand how empty are the natives in terms of creative space and how rich the Europeans are. There was a small amount of early Canadian drama in English and that too shaped largely by Britishers, for example, Lieutenant Adam Allan’s The New Gentle Shepherd (1798), which was based on Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd (1725), a pastoral drama in Scottish dialect. English heroic tragedies, George Cocking’s verse drama The Conquest of Canada (1766) was based on John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (1671).

Nineteenth Century Anglophone-Canadian Drama

19th century Anglophone-Canadian drama was dominated by the dominant dramatic genre – closet poetic drama. Thomas Hill’s lost play The Provincial Association, which was so satirical that it caused tension in the nearby locality and Dolorsolatio, by “Sam Scribble” (1865), a good humoured local political parody.ix Other such works where satire blends with closet drama are, Henry Fuller’s Gilbert-and-Sullivan H.M.S. Parliament (1880), John E. P. Aldous and Jean McIlwraith’s Ptarmigan (1895) etc. Shakespearean drama and Romantic drama of the western Europe have been model to Canadian writers such as Charles Mair, William Wilfred Campbell, and Charles Heavysege who wrote neo-Shakespearean or neo- Romantic verse dramas. Such examples are Campbell’s Mordred [1895], Heavysege’s Saul [1857]) and Mair’s Tecumseh [1866].x Women are also dominant on stage at this time and they represent different contemporary everyday issues in their dramas, ranging from construction of gender, role of women in the society, relevance of working women in family, independence from patriarchy etc. Few such examples are Sarah Anne Curzon’s The Sweet Girl Graduate [1882] and Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812 [1887]) and Eliza Lanesford’s Cushing (Esther [1838] and The Fatal Ring [1840]).xi

Anglophone-Canadian Theatre after the World War I

20th century Anglophone-Canadian drama followed the European avant-garde theatre and constructed theatre hall after Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. It was fashioned after the European lifestyle “Little Theatre Movement” that had traits of both nationalism and naturalism. Torronto’s Hart House became the Little Theatre under Roy Mitchel. Canadian plays from Hart House Theatre in 1926–7 was published by Vincent Massey from it.xiii Local theatre groups performed Merrill Denison’s Brothers in Arms (1921), and Marsh Hay (1923), both are naturalistic in nature. Lois Reynolds Kerr’s social satires Among Those Present (1933) and Nellie McNabb (1934) were houseful hits. Though poetic dramas, such as the Reverend Robert Norwood’s The Witch of Endor (1916) continued to be written in the 20th century was predominant in nature, melodramas and light comedies such as W.A. Tremayne’s The Man Who Went (1918), a wartime spy thriller, were also performed. Marjorie Pickthall’s The Woodcarver’s Wife (1920) is a significant play of the period which albeit a romantic melodrama, reflects modernist and protofeminist overtones. It talks about the role of women and native people within imperialist project.xiv An important contribution was made by Herman Voaden with his symphonic expressionism. His Symphony, “A Drama of Motion and Light for a New Theatre” is a play without any dialogue. In the Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature, Ric Knowell notes, “Voaden’s work represents the totalizing formalist containment of disciplinary difference within an overriding master vision rather than any more open or inter-discursive hybridity.” (118)xv While, the bourgeois amateur theatre was in full swing with the Dominion Drama Festival (DDF) being organised annually, a left wing Workers’ Theatre was also performed simultaneously with a radical political ideology that found its strategy in the international worker’s movement. These plays were modern and mostly documentary. Its best-known play was Eight Men Speak, by Oscar Ryan, E. Cecil Smith, Frank Love, and Mildred Goldberg.

The Workers’ Theatre was arguably the most innovative of the period, introducing the techniques of Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, and American documentary drama to a Canadian tradition that would later boast the documentaries of Toronto Workshop Productions, Théâtre Passe Muraille, and The Mummers Troupe. It is in this backdrop that most of the political plays of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s are best read, including work emerging out of the Canadian Popular Theatre Alliance and the work of such playwrights as Arthur Milner (Zero Hour [1986], Masada [1989]) and David Fennario (On the Job [1975], Balconville [1979], Joe Beef [1991], Banana Boots [1994]).

Anglophone-Canadian Theatre after the World War II

The most significant development in the 1950s, post second World War was the founding of Toronto Workshop Productions in 1959 by George Luscombe, following Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in Stratford East, London. One of the reasons that this period is significant in terms of dramatic evolution is that the dramatists have followed the politically engaged dramaturgy of Piscator and Brecht. The tradition of collective documentary and the search for hybrid Canadian dramaturgies is another notable characteristics of this time.xix In collaborations such as Hey Rube! (1961), Mr. Bones (1969), Chicago ’70 (1970), Ten Lost Years (1974), and Ain’t Lookin’ (1980), Luscombe created a hybrid documentary form that blended elements from circus and minstrelsy with mime, music, and team sports to address issues of class, revolutionary politics, and race. The other development of this period is that one-act plays in a variety of styles became the predominant form of the time. Poet Marjorie Pickthall’s evocative verse drama “The Woodcarver’s Wife” (University Magazine, 1920) was performed and appreciated at Hart House, University of Toronto. The Great American Depression of 30s also led to numerous “Worker’s Plays.” Dorothy Livesay, whose “Joe Derry” (Masses, 1933) is a narrated pantomime, was the most famous author involved; Eight Men Speak (1934) by Oscar Ryan, E. Cecil-Smith, H. Francis and Mildred Goldberg, was the most notable play.

French-Canadian Drama from 1900 to 1948

Critics have compartmentalized pre-1837 period as ‘pre-literary’, 19th C is an ‘affirmation of literary identity’, 20th C is the maturity period of Francophone Canadian literature. As nineteenth century French-Canadian literature has been seen as reactionary for its overdependence on idealism and romanticism, twentieth century French-Canadian literature is utterly cosmopolitan as Québec was becoming rapidly urbanized. At this outset, a group of poets formed L’École littéraire de Montréal (The Montreal Literary School) to meet and read their verse. Very little happened in French-Canadian drama till the middle of the 1930s. The tour of the French actress in Quebec has ignited the zeal of doing theatre and in a short notice three professional theatre halls – Stella Théâtre, Théâtre National and the Théâtre des Nouveautés. Émile Legault, founder of the troupe called Les Compagnons de Saint Laurent, studied the dramatic techniques in France. The he came back and trained a group of actors at Quebec. With them he presented a selection of classical European plays around 1950s. So Legault’s contribution to the growth of theater in Quebec was an important one since he opened up the stage for serious theatre, sometimes intimate theater in the context of production techniques that were characterized by simplicity, sobriety, and aesthetic innovation as well as he has tried to build up a kind of theatre culture in the region. End of 1930s, Quebec theatre has become much more influenced by the close neighbor, United States of America. Gratien Gélinas. the most successful dramatist of this time, produced Tit- Coq (1949) which bring back the working class of Quebec to the theatre stage. They have identified themselves with the characters of the play as it is quintessentially Quebec and realistic in nature. Marcel Dubé, another dramatist who worked on the people of lower economic strata and write a play titled Zone (1953), an adaptation of Gabrielle Roy’s novel. Thus these two playwrights opened up a new territory for the theatre in Quebec.

French-Canadian Drama from 1948 to 1968

The reason behind compartmentalization of French-Canadian literature at the year 1948 is the publication of a manifesto, titled Refus global (Global Refusal), issued by a group of sixteen writers and artists which declares the artistic declaration of complete independence.

So this brief period of twenty odd years has seen a quantum leap not only in terms of social, political and economical change but a radical change in creative writing and imagination on which newer landscapes will be drawn in the next decade.

The dramatic texts of this period are chiefly psychological dramas. The plays of Dubé and Gélinas, besides being working class dramas are also psychological in nature. There are some other good productions by Anne Hébert and Yves Thériault in the realm of psychological theatre such as, Anne Hébert’s Le Temps sauvage (The Wild Time, 1966), Yves Thériault’s Le Marcheur (The Walker, 1950). The themes these theatres signalled: the family, no longer a refuge but a torture chamber, the centre of bitter conflicts, generation gap, anger of the younger generation etc. Conditions are slowly becoming ripe for the growth of a national dramaturgy, as rich and as varied as the novel in Quebec. The Canada Council increased its aid to the theatre almost thrice between 1964 and 1965. During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of new professional theatres were established in Montreal, and there was a significant growth in the number of semi-professional or experimental theaters. In 1962, the Quebec government took control of the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique, making it into Quebec’s primary acting school. Perhaps most important was the foundation, in 1965, of the Centre d’Essai des Auteurs Dramatiques. This group of playwrights, which continues to exist in the 1990s, gives dramatic readings and generally promotes a sense of a collective, non- commercial effort at creating a kind of drama that is specifically québécois.

French-Canadian Literature from 1968 to present 

The next two decades have seen a topsy-turvy political situation. The quest for identity is a recurrent theme in terms of Québec literature which was championed into these themes show that the present Québec literature is not engulfed into the boundary of nationalism, rather exploring newer issues. When the first play by Michel Tremblay was brought to the stage in 1968 there was already, backstage so to speak, a considerable amount of experimental theatrical activity. His first play Les Belles-Soeurs, marked the beginning of the new Quebec theater, a theater that differed in form, content, and language from what had come before a groundbreaking start for post 1968 Quebec drama. Jean Barbeau also followed Trembley in terms of working class setting from his first play Ben-Ur. Michel Garneau, another contemporary playwright who tries to achieve a level of lyricism by the use of music, songs, and a poetic form in his plays like Strauss et Pesant (et Rosa) (1979). Antonine Maillet, a prominent women playwright, achieved success with La Sagouine (La Sagouine, 1974), and Évangéline deusse (Evangeline the Second, 1975). Jean-Claude Germain’s theatre is full of Quebec history and legends. His play titled, Si les Sansoucis s’en soucient, ces sansoucis-ci s’en soucieraient-ils? Bien parler c’est se respecter! (one of the longest titles in Quebec theater, it is an untranslatable play on words ending with a slogan of the Office de la Langue Française: “To speak well is to respect yourself”), were dramatizations of the complexity of the québécois personality in a country whose values and culture are imposed from the outside. He explores Quebec’s past, in history and in legend which is the subject of Un pays dont la devise est je m’oublie (A Country Whose Motto Is I Forget Myself, 1976). Next in discussion are Françoise Loranger and Robert Gurik, who wrote political theater in the 1960s and 1970s. Françoise Loranger’s playsLe Chemin du Roy (The King’s Road) and Médium saignant (Medium Rare) and Robert Gurik’s Hamlet, Prince du Québec (1968) and Le Procès de Jean-Baptiste M. (The Trial of Jean-Baptiste M., 1972) are written in response to specific political events. Marie Laberge’s C’était avant la guerre à l’Anse à Gilles (It Was before the War in Gilles’ Cove) was produced in 1981; it is a strong feminist answer to the patriarchal society of Quebec. Another important theatre of early 80’s is Jean-Pierre Ronfard’s Vie et mort du Roi Boiteux (Life and death of the Lame King, 1981) which is akind of historical fresco that takes its audience on a voyage that spans centuries, continents, and cultures. René-Daniel Dubois, a playwright and actor, introduced absurdism in Quebec drama. His Panique à Longueil (Panic in Longueil, 1980) and Being at Home with Claude (1984) dramatize avant-guard techniques, absurdity of life and quest for meaning. One recent innovation in western Francophone theater is the use of narrativized dramatic monologues.

Summary 

In conclusion, it could be argued that, Canadian theatre is a vibrant, diverse, innovative, experimental, creative literary corpus. We have dealt with the political, social and economical changes of Canada and informed the readers about the transformation of Canadian theatre.

The recurrent feature of English-Canadian drama is hybridity as the language and dramaturgical structure have been taken from Europe, the abode of the colonial masters, but the plot or content has been taken from native Canada and amalgamated and appropriated in Canada.

References:

• Kröller, Eva-Marie. The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Lorne Pierce, An outline of French-Canadian literature, Montreal and New York: Louis Carrier & Co, 1927.
• Thacker, Robert. The ACSUS Papers on English Canadian Literature, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1996.
• Weiss, Jonathan M. and Moss, Jane. The ACSUS Papers French-Canadian Literature, Michigan: Michigan State University Press. 1996.