PERFORMED NEGOTIATIONS: The Historical Significance of the Second Wave Alternate Theatre in English Canada and Its Relationship to the Popular Tradition by Barbara Drennan B.F^., University of Windsor, 1973 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Theatre We accept this dissertation as conforming to the required standard Michael R. Booth, Supervisor (Department of Theatre) Juliapa M. Saxton (Department of Theatre) Murray D. Edwards (Department of Theatre) Stephen A.C. Scobie (Department of English) Dr. Malcolm Page, External Examiner (Department of English, Simon Fraser University) © Barbara Drennan, 1995 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopying or other means, without the permission of the author. Supervisor: Michael R. Booth ABSTRACT This doctoral project began in the early 1980s when 1 became involved in making a community theatre event on Salt Spring Island with a group of artists accomplished in disciplines other than theatre. The production was marked by an oiientation toward creating stage images rather than a literary text and by the playful exploitation of theatricality. This experiment in theatrical performance challenged my received ideas about theatre and drama. As a result of this experience, I began to see differences in original, small-venue productions which were considered part of the English-Canadian alternate theatre scene. I deter­ mined that the practitioners who created these events could be considered a second generation to the Alternate Theatre Movement of the 70s and settled on identifying their practice as Second Wave. The singular difficulty which Second Wave companies experience is their marginalization by m ainstream theatre reviewers. These critics not only promote productions but also educate audiences and other theatre practitioners about theatre practice. Second Wave productions defy con­ ventional descriptive categories which are founded on the assumption that theatre practice is the interpretation of a literary dinma; thus they seem to fall short of their artistic potential. At issue here is the way we talk about theatre in English Canada: the conventions which authenticate our discourse and the implications of this discourse which makes material the three-way dynamic — knowledge/power/practicïe — as it pertains to our theatre institution and cultural value systems. In this study, three Second Wave productions were selected as sample case studies. 1 recognized these theatre events as different because they employed performance practices from the popular theatre tradition to generate their plays. Tears of a Dinosaur (One Yellow Rabbit, Calgary) used puppets; Doctor Dapertutto (Theatre Columbus, Toronto) used downing techniques; and Down North (St. Ann’s Bay Players, Cape Breton Island) used local folk performance conventions. In English-speaking theatre, popular traditions are trivialized; they are spoken of in derogatory terms as lesser forms or entertainm ents. Sometimes they are discursively constructed as paratheatrical or outside theatre. I concluded that the Second Wave negotiation between the popular traditions and the conventional or literary paradigm for theatre as an art form is stylistically indicative of postmodernism. At the same time, this practice is politically subversive, a postcolonial gest, because the employ­ ment of paratheatrical traditions undermines discursive norms about English-Canadian theatre and thus destabilizes the dominant cultural narratives which sustain the hegemonic status quo. ______________________ Michael R. Booth, Supervisor (Department of Theatre) Juliana M. Saxton (Department of Theatre) Murray D. Edwards (Department of Theatre) Stephen A.C. Scobie (Depa#6ent of English) ________________________ Dr. Malcolm External Examiner (Department of English, Simon Fraser University) TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................... viii Quotation (Roy Mitchell) ................................................................................................. x Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... xi Dedication ...................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1 THE NEGOTIATION: SETTING THE TABLE TO ACCOMMODATE DIFFERENCE 1.0 Is there a DRAMA in this THEATRE? ........................................ 1 1.1 Identifying D ram a ....................................................................... 6 1.2 Performing the Nei^tiation ........................................................ 9 1.3 The Dance of Negotiation: An Interlude ..................................... 13 1.4 Methodology: Questioning as Strategy ........................................ 15 1.5 The Process of Theatrical Gamemaking ...................................... 22 1.6 Rethinking the Definition of Theatre as Communication 25 1.7 Making Different Theatre Games ................................................ 29 ENDNOTES ........................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 2 PROCESS IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH PRODUCT: INTERROGATING ENGLISH-CANADIAN THEATRE HISTORY 2.0 Questioning Historical Narratives: How Have We Constructed Our Theatrical Past? ............................................... 43 2.1 Carving Alternate Territory in the English-Canadian Theatre ....................................................................................... 48 2.2 The Sanctioned Alternate Theatre Viewed Through the Post­ structuralist/Postmodern L e n s ................................................... 51 2.3 The Second Wave Alternate Theatre ........................................... 55 2.4 Negotiations with fhe Second Wave: Selecting Case Studies for the Purpose of Research ................................. 60 2.5 Discursive Negotiations: Second Wave Productions .................... 66 ENDNOTES ........................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER 3 CONSTRUCTING THE SECOND WAVE WITHIN AN HISTORICAL CONTEXT 3.0 Introduction ................................................................................ 80 3.1 Performance Space ...................................................................... 80 3.2 Audiences .................................................................................... 83 3.3 Experimentation .......................................................................... 86 3.4 Social and Political Change ........................................................ 90 3.5 Dismantling Theatre’s Traditional Hierarchy............................. 96 3.6 Nationalism ................................................................................ 97 3.7 Historical Research and the Analogy of the Scientific Experiment: Further Negotiations ............................................ 99 ENDNOTES .......................................................................................... 108 CÏL\PTER 4 NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCES IN THEATRICAL TRADITIONS USING POSTSTRUCTURAL STRATEGIES FOR ANALYSIS 4.0 How We Talk about Theatre: The Conceptual Model ..................... 115 4.1 Conventional Wisdom, the Dominant Theatrical Model and Theatre Practice: Knowledge/Power/Practice ........................... 120 4.2 Analysis of Discourse Using Poststructuralist Strategies .............124 4.3 Poststructural Analysis as Gestic Criticism ............................... 127 4.4 Isolating the Rules Within Texts: Authenticating Conventions .............................................................................. 130 4.5 Isolating the Matrix of Rules: Coded Vocabularies ....................... 138 ENDNOTES .......................................................................................... 141 CHAPTER 5 NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCES IN THEATRICAL TRADITIONS (II): THE POSTSTRUCTURAL ANALYSIS 5.0 Introduction ............................................................................... 146 5.1 A Stage in Our Past: An Analysis ................................................150 5.2 Theatre History in Canada: A Structural A nalysis ....................... 163 5.3 The Legitimate Theatre in English-Canadian Theatre Histories .......................................................................................169 5.4 The "Not Legitimate" Theatre in Nineteenth-centuiy Canada: "The Variety Theatre" ................................................ 176 5.5 Marking the Traditions of the "Not legitimate" in English- speaking Theatre Narratives ..................................................... 181 ENDNOTES .......................................................................................... 184 CHAPTER 6 MARKING THE POPULAR THEATRE PERFORMANCE I ................................................................................ 188 6.0 The Prologue: Performance Strategies ........................................ 189 6.1 The Disembodied Quotation; or,Informing on Your Neighbour .................................................................................