Lists

[Michael McKinnie]

Valerie Senyk wrote:

>It's also a given
>that good is good, and mediocre is what it is, no matter where it's
>from.

Forgive what may be an impertinent question, but don't history and
geography disprove this?

Yet I think that it's interesting, because it seems to make manifest an
ideology of affirmative aesthetic value that can be tethered to kind of
cultural nationalism (but perhaps doesn't necessarily have to be) in
advocating Canadian drama:  our plays can be just as "good" as theirs, so
why aren't they included in lists/anthologies/syllabi, etc.?  The corollary
to this is the assumption that people who compile anthologies/lists/syllabi
of "world theatre" are selecting plays on such a similarly meritocratic
basis (even if such a basis exists discretely, which I strongly doubt).
Anthologies may be promoted on this rationale, but I think that the
evidence is clear that affirmative aesthetic value is just as likely to be
trojan horse for a whole range of other complex, unconscious, and
productive considerations.  All of this means that if the question of why
Canadian plays are elided internationally is predicated on a meritocratic
explanation, a satisfactory explanation will never come, and the questioner
will be left perpetually frustrated.

Another quick point:  is it just me, or has this discussion has been
premised largely on the conflation of "the best" with dramatic literature?
There have been  signficant performances in Canadian theatre that are not
text-based, and many performance texts whose independence from the moment
of performance is highly provisional, even if they are published (as an
example, I think of the work of One Yellow Rabbit or of Michael
Hollingsworth's History of the Village of the Small Huts series).  I'd
suggest that the urge to rank here also privileges those theatrical events
whose texts conform most to ideals of the literary.  That's not necessarily
a bad thing, but we should be clear about what we're doing.

--  Michael


_______________________________
Michael McKinnie
Candidate, Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama
Northwestern University
m-mckinnie at nwu.edu