CANDRAMA and a Question

[Stuart Scadron-Wattles]

        Interesting to read Alistair Wallis' latest post. I almost agree
with LePage's analogy between the pairings of photography-painting and
film-live performance, but suggest that for Anglophones, at least, the
television-live performance pairing is the more dangerous one to
contemplate, for the theatre. Those of you who teach acting at the early
undergraduate level must know what I mean. Those of us who produce outside
of Toronto and are concerned about the age of our theatregoers certainly do.
        What LePage misses in his analogy is the dynamic of the audience,
as it gathers, comprehends and participates in the communal nature of live
performance. Here, it is television which is the great contrast and which
is freeing us up, even more than film.
        At Theatre & Company, we run a Sept-May season for a general
audience. Our commitment to maintain mainstream audience trust and
experiment at the same time is great, so our experiments move slowly... but
our audience grows with us. From the outset, they know they're in for
something different: we run the entire season in a flex theatre: new
subscribers find their reserved seats in all different configurations over
a year. We're telling them that we're not a big living room with something
going on at one end. By the end of the year, they've got the point.
Seventy-six percent of them renew just to find out what we'll do to/for
them next year.
        Our resident acting ensemble trains together on a regular basis,
exploring the dynamics of live performance, and using the sessions as
laboratory for our production work. We share our findings with our guest
artists, as we integrate them into our season.
        We've been doing this for nine years in Kitchener-Waterloo,
Ontario. It doesn't look flashy or radical or avant-garde. It doesn't
attract funding for experimental projects. We are not beloved by academics
who do not attend. It doesn't get reviewed by the Globe and Mail on a
regular basis. (The local critic hates us as much as he loves Stratford.)
It just works.
         The realistic theatre is doomed, but Anglophone audiences do not
know it; we have to demonstrate the point by making the contrast and
educating them. Otherwise, our audience will fade away into grey oblivion:
There are not enough cardiologists in Ontario to keep the audiences of some
theatres awake and alive for another five years. Our audience is mostly
interested in realistic work, because they are used to it, but we always do
at least one piece in our season which treats them to something different,
and will continue to do more. It's how the theatre will thrive in the
future.

**** Please note new office address below ****
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Stuart Scadron-Wattles
Theatre & Company
P.O.Box 876
27 King Street West
Kitchener, ONT  N2G 4C5
(519) 571-7080
(519) 571-9051 (fax)

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