Theory on parade

[Gary Chambers]

>I certainly endorse Richard Plant's notion that
>"professionals" and academics should question their
>theories of theatre in an ongoing way. (The
>professionals probably have some, whether they know
>it or not.) But it seems to me that a lot of theory
>-does- shape performance, especially in Canada,
>where our drama is largely generated out of colleges
>and universities, or by university-trained artists.
>The danger is, of course, that at its worst this
>creates a hermetic sort of theatre, with an alienated
>audience -- or, as is often the case these days, no
>audience at all.

>Frank Moher

This is not a disagreement with Frank's posting as
clipped above.  I agree with most of what he has
expressed, and I'm aware that his experience as a
playwright may give him some insights that I lack.
On the other hand, I too worry about the hermetic
nature of some Canadian theatre, but I feel I have
a strong and passionate argument that points the
finger squarely at the real culprits, and they are
not our academics.

Let me begin by saying that I am not part of the
education racket.  I have no axes to grind in defending
the policies and procedures of the academic community.

Having said that, I would like to suggest that
Canada's academics are spearheading the growth of
dramatic art in this country.  What holds Canadian drama
back is not the academic community's theories; rather a
maze of public and private sector bureaucracies, which
together totally control the economics of Canadian
dramatic art, and thereby often exert destructive
influences on an artistic level.

By way of explanation, please allow me to bore you
briefly with some experiences of my own, not in
theatre but in media, which is an industry that shares
many economic and creative parallels with dramatic art.

Over 20 years ago I began a career in journalism on Canada's
west coast.  Journalism was not my main interest at the time.
Drama was my real interest, but academics advised me that
there was little future in drama as a profession in Canada.
Journalism, I was told, held much greater opportunities.

Their advice was a load of steaming rubbish, but that
is water under the proverbial trestle.  The point is,
that it did not take me long to establish a modest
presence in the print and broadcast markets in the
Greater Vancouver area.  Once I had carved my niche
in those markets, my next step was to attempt to
join a union or professional association.

I won't torture you with details, but to make a
long story short, I discovered the unions that
served workers in Canadian media at that time
operated closed shops.  They viewed freelancers like
myself as parasites, stealing work from union
members in the big print and broadcast chains.
As a result, they routinely denied membership to
freelancers, using the most bogus and fanciful
excuses you could possibly imagine.

In frustration I left Canada.  I moved to Europe,
and started at the bottom again.  My first job was
with a lowly two man freelance press agency, in a
provincial English garrison town.  And guess what?
As soon as I started working, I was granted
membership in Britain's largest media union.  This
enabled me to begin building a real career, rather
than following some impossible pipe-dream.  By the
time I left England seven years later, I was also
approved for membership in the Institute of
Journalists - a fairly prestigious international
professional association of broadcast and print media
types.  I should add, that my income from media work
by that time had roughly quadrupled.

Soon after my return to Canada, I had occasion to
carry on a conversation with a union official, from
one of the mobs that had denied me membership in the
past.  While I was away, it seems this union had been
confronted with some competition from other trade
unions.  Suddenly they wanted me to join, even though
I was unemployed.  Of course, I declined their offer.
The SOB's didn't want me when I needed them, so why
should I oblige them now?

While I was in Europe, I also gained some acting
experience in community theatre, and did some
TV documentary work.  I hoped to use that
experience back here, to switch from news media to
dramatic art.  I've done a little work along these
lines over the past year or two, and this September
I will be starting a two year diploma course in
mutli-media, in which I hope to gain new skills
that can be applied in dramatic presentations.  But
I'm beginning to suspect that I will once again have to
leave Canada to achieve success.

It's the same problem all over again: closed shops,
imposed by unions and professional associations, in
concert with self serving government bureaucracies.

Take Canada's film actors for example.  They require
six speaking parts in a row to get into their so-called
professional association.  I recently heard of a case
of a woman who had five, and then became ill and was
hospitalised for some time.  When she got out of the
hospital, she was informed she had to start all over
again at square one.  What an insult!

I guess Canadians just hate art and artists.  After
all, we wouldn't dream of treating a B.C. lumberjack,
an Alberta tool pusher, or a Maritime fisherman this
way.  This kind of insult is reserved only for our
artists.  How many Canadians really believe you can
do a serious days work, with slap on your face and
your legs in tights?  I think we still try to limit
ourselves as, "Hewers of wood and drawers of water?"
Art raises our ideals, and threatens this image
of noble savagery.

You think I am unkind?

Well how about Equity?

In the USA or Britain, anyone can buy a copy of
The Stage or Variety, or a number of other similar journals.
Therein they can learn about audition dates, and other
valuable career information.  In Canada, Equity officials
jealously guard this information.  They print a few
shreds of data in their paltry four page photocopied
newsletters, which they send out exclusively
to those who have been lucky enough to be ordained
into their segregated order.

I am certainly not a Conservative, but I give full credit
to Margaret Thatcher for outlawing closed shops.  People
like Klein and Davis in this country can wave the
banners of free enterprise all they want, but their
tolerance of closed shops wi
ower structures.  Give me a real
Conservative any day.  Real Conservatives care about the
quality of people's lives, even though one may sometimes
disagree with their methods of achieving that quality.
And yes, real Conservatives abhor closed shops.

Canadian commercial drama is not an industry.  It's just
an old boys' network, supported in many cases by
government subsidies.

Every year our governments claim to pour millions into
the arts.  But I have sat on the board of a community
theatre receiving arts grants, and I have seen who
controls the spending of that money.  It certainly isn't
artists.  It is more likely to be a local board of bankers,
small time politicians, shopkeepers and other Rotarians.

And of course, mobs like Equity and ACTRA are right into
this game too.  Here's how it works.  First the
local burghers get a government arts grant, big enough to
hire a few professionals at respectable wages.  Then they
fire off letters to Equity and ACTRA, pleading poverty.
The unions respond by tossing waivers around like cheap
china at a Greek feast.  This enables the local
burghers to thumb their noses at the professionals, and
hire a bus load of gullible young job seekers at welfare
wages.  (The casting couch may be fading away, but working
in Canadian theatre can still get you screwed.)  Try as
they might, the group cannot stage the quality show that
a few professionals can offer. So audiences get thinner
and thinner.

It's all politically motivated, of course.  It looks much
better on Statistics Canada reports, to create two dozen
fake jobs than a few real ones.  Theatre attendance
doesn't even enter into the equation.

Many Canadian industries receive subsidies.  But
name one Canadian industry outside of the arts, in
which the subsidy funds are not managed by qualified
industry professionals, but instead by any Tom, Dick or
Harry who can get elected or appointed to a community
board.  Too many Canadian arts dollars are being used to
buy votes along main street, instead of being used to
foster art.  That is a much bigger problem than any
weird theory that might enter the mind of an eccentric
drama professor.

Many giants of international theatre also receive
subsidies when they launch new projects.  But I'll bet
their funds are seldom contingent on marauding bands of
shopkeepers, approving their artistic judgments.  After
all, your local business community may include some very
fine people, but how many of them know squat about
putting bums on theatre seats?

No, I do not believe that academic theoretical
experimentation in Canadian theatre is doing any harm.
On the contrary, the search for new theatrical
forms and methods in academic institutions is one of
the strengths of Canadian dramatic art.  It is a search
for new ways to reflect our culture, and it is bound
to be more effective in the long term, than all the
nauseating nationalistic hype that spews forth daily
from our politicians and media moguls.

Of course, it is wise for teachers in any
discipline to engage in a little reflection and soul
searching from time to time.  But any argument to
blame empty community theatres on Canada's academic
community, stretches the bounds of reality.  Anyone
who opens their eyes can see who is alienating both
audiences and artists in Canada, and it is not our
universities.  Most decent professors are open to
alternative arguments, but try disagreeing with the
policies of ACTRA, Equity or any government grants
body and see how far it gets you.

If Canada's academic community has anything to be
ashamed of in this regard, it is not the nature of
its artistic theories, but the fact that it sends out
hordes of BFA graduates each year, pumped full of
jingoistic nationalist fervour, but ill prepared
for the sense of white hot fighting rage that
many will sadly have to acquire, if they are ever to
be taken seriously in their chosen profession.

Anyway, I've ranted about this sort of thing on
CANDRAMA before, and received a load of hate e-mail
for it. I guess I'm in for another dose.  Those
who find my message offensive are welcome to sling
some mud my way.  I ask only one thing.  I am obviously
prepared to go public with some of my most passionate
beliefs, so please respond in kind.  Please share any
debate on these issues with the whole group, rather
than sending Internet nasties directly to my mailbox.
If you truly feel I'm off track in this posting, then
let everyone have a look at where you think I went
wrong.

You certainly don't have to worry about hurting my
feelings.  I don't expect to throw rocks at the wanna-
be-gods of Canadian theatre, without some mud blowing
back in my face.

Gary Chambers

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Gary Chambers            e-mail: GCHAMBERS at upanet.uleth.ca
Public Access Internet
The University of Lethbridge