National coverage

[Denis Johnston]

In the 1940s Lister Sinclair wrote a radio play called something like
"We All Hate Toronto," based on the notion that a widespread disdain for
Hogtown is one of the few national impulses that holds this country
together. I don't think that this was a new idea even then, and
CANDRAMA's recent discussion shows that it is still strongly felt.

As a person born and raised in Victoria BC, and who lived there for 30
of my first 32 years, I would like to say a few meek words in favour of
the cultural advantages of the city we all love to hate. Like Paul
Malone, I too saw a lot of bad plays at the University of Toronto --
hell, I was even IN some of them. But I also saw a lot of plays that I
would have never seen anywhere else -- a particularly appalling
production of _Aminta_ springs to mind, that benchmark of Italian
pastoral romance, always mentioned in theatre history classes but never
read, let alone performed. Gosh, I'm glad I saw that show, no matter how
bad it was. You gotta kiss a lot of toads etc etc.

The population and energy of Toronto attract a lot of artists who do a
lot of good work. You can probably see more plays in a year in Toronto
than you can even in New York, because the small theatre scene is so
stable and the runs are all fairly limited. It's a great place to go to
theatre of all kinds. This week I saw _A Memory of Water_ at Tarragon, a
sisterhood play which covers fairly familiar ground but which was
delivered by a truly wonderful cast doing wonderful work, including
Martha Burns (from Edmonton, I think), Corrine Koslo
(Edmonton/Vancouver) and Nancy Palk (Kingston). (Don't know where the
other three actors are from.) I expect that there are relatively few
places in Canada where you could see a cast of this calibre doing a
newish problematic English play in a theatre seating less than 300. I
also saw a lot of theatre people in the audience who came from somewhere
else too but who are now associated with Toronto: Fiona Reid (Montreal),
Judith Thompson (Kingston), Patricia Hamilton (Saskatchewan) and our
faithful correspondent Guillermo, to name but a few. Toronto attracts
artists from elsewhere. Theatre artists go there to be where a lot of
theatre is being made, more theatre than anywhere else in anglophone
Canada. Toronto-centricity is not just a prejudice, it's also a cultural
force, a fact.

As to the Toronto-centricity of the Globe and Mail, most people who read
it live in Toronto, so naturally they want to know what's going on
there. Most people outside Toronto who read the Globe and Mail do so
partly because they want to know what's going on in Toronto, because
Toronto is an interesting place. The venerable Globe's biases are well
established, and although I agree that the word "National" on the front
page should perhaps be in quotes, I doubt if we should be surprised that
the newspaper caters to the prejudices of its readership (which generate
the prejudices of its advertisers).

As to the National Post, I haven't looked at one yet because I don't
want to give Mr Black any encouragement. Though I suspect that my
minuscule boycott will have no impact whatever on Mr Black's ultimate
success or failure, I will stick to it. But may I say: if anyone out
there anticipated some vigorous new arts coverage from Mr Black's
long-planned personal expression of power ... well, words fail me.

Sincerely,
Denis Johnston