an old Canadian play: Marsh Hay

[Reid Gilbert]

GLEN NICHOLS,NICHOLSG at UMONCTON.CA,Internet writes in conversation with Denis
Johnston and Alan Filewod:
> Date:          Wed, 21 Aug 1996 14:19:42 -0400
> Reply-to:      Alan D Filewod <afilewod at UOGUELPH.CA>

> On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Denis Johnston wrote:
>
> > While it appears that many members of the LISTSERV are professionals, I
> > think you'd find few professionals among the membership of ACTR (if
that's
> > what you mean by "association"). I think that, in recent years, the ACTR
has
> > grown to focus more and more on theoretical concerns, an area in which
few
> > professionals have any interest -- or patience.
> > Denis Johnston
> > Academy of the Shaw Festival
> > drj at shawfest.com
> >
>
> It may be that few "professionals" have patience for theory. But should
> they boast about it? Roll over, Shaw; Roll over, Brecht.

---Alan


>I've just come back from 8 weeks away to discover, once again, the
theory/practise debate on Candrama.  I must say it gives one a sense of deja
vu.

Surely the "practioners" (some theorists and academics are quite
professional, Denis) create primary material upon which the theorists and
historians and other academic critics write. And surely, these days, many
productions are informed by the criticism "in the air" such that
"practioners" incorporate styles, attitudes, politics growing out of "theory"
into their design of plays/performances.  I always fail to see where the
split needs to be.   We may not all speak each other's metalanguages but we
all reflect upon and create the project of "theatre."

I've just been at the Avignon Festival where I saw a large number of plays
which were most pointedly inflected from current (European) "theory"--this
word is, itself, so misleading. These productions (remountings of canonical
plays and new work) display an understanding by their dramaturges and
directors of current theatre issues/criticism in their design and acting and
in the themes/statements of the plays themselves.  And the publicity for many
of these plays (especially the "new" or "Festival Off" [fringe] plays) takes
directly from current  theoretical language to advertise the shows.

So it seems the marriage of theory and practise in Europe may be less
strained than it sometimes appears in Canada.

Now the Shaw Festival is a special case, a theatre dedicated to a certain
type of show.  But in conversation with Denis and Christopher Newton at the
ACTR banquet last May I had what Denis would term a "theoretical discussion"
with Christopher about the extent to which the Shaw production of  __Ideal
Husband__ was sufficiently "queered."  While we didn't share a lingo, I think
Christopher and I shared the same reading of the issue and he seemed to me to
be interested in the "theory" I was using to explain (to myself) the
practical decisions his director had (and had not) taken in creating the
production.  I may be wrong; Denis might be privy to Christopher's later
comments on our discussion.  But I left the table thinking that two people
interested in the theatre had discussed a play from different points of view
but in some harmony.  Isn't that what having more than one approach is
supposed to engender?

As for the difference between Candrama and ACTR--that is under discussion in
the ACTR executive right now.  Candrama was built originally as a vehicle for
ACTR (says its founder, Ed); ACTR may want a "membership" BBS as well to
augment its Newsletter.  But any distinction between memers and non-members
of ACTR, academics, theorists, "professionals"  and practitioners among those
engaged in discussion on Candrama seems to me--in my relaxed holiday
mood--unhelpful.

It is perversely comforting to discover that things haven't changed in the 8
weeks I've been abroad.   I'd hate the theatre community to have changed the
locks.  Although we might think of opening a window or two.

Reid Gilbert