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The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and Amateur Theatricals in 1930’S Vancouver, Bc

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The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and Amateur Theatricals in 1930’S Vancouver, Bc THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH FEDERATION AND AMATEUR THEATRICALS IN 1930’S VANCOUVER, BC by PATRICIA HEWS EVERETT-KABUT BA, Linfield College, 2007 MA, University of Arizona, 2010 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Theatre) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) September 2016 © Patricia Hews Everett-Kabut, 2016 ABSTRACT This research investigates a collection of short one-act plays in the Arthur J. Turner Fonds held in the University of British Columbia Rare Books and Special Collections. These plays, written by Arthur J. Turner, Thorvald “Denny” Kristiansen and Hubert Evans in the mid 1930’s, formed part of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation’s broader social and propaganda efforts to educate and indoctrinate new members in the basic tenets of Socialism and the CCF platform. Like agitprop plays created elsewhere in Canada, Britain and the United States, dramatic groups within CCF clubs wrote and performed such plays as one of many means of legitimization for parties and movements of the Left along with other educational, social and political activities. For the CCF, a recently formed political party built by the merger of many disparate groups and cultures, solidifying their voting base and creating new centres for progressive culture, social gatherings, shared political vision and party solidarity was vital in the 1930’s to ensure the continued existence of the party as well as electoral success and political change. This research seeks to situate these plays amid their social, cultural, historical and political contexts to show that their emergence was a result of the unique set of circumstances created in the Depression-era and a manifestation of the larger global workers’ theatre movement. Finally, this research seeks to recover and publicize the plays of the CCF drama groups that have been almost entirely erased from the broader discourse of Canadian theatre due to their amateur status and exclusion from the hegemonic archive. ii PREFACE This dissertation is an original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Patricia Everett-Kabut. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................ ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ x DEDICATION .............................................................................................................................. xii CHAPTER ONE: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Personal Investment in The Research ......................................................................................... 4 Turner, Kristiansen and Evans .................................................................................................... 5 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 11 Purpose and Scope ................................................................................................................. 11 Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 12 Research Methodology .......................................................................................................... 12 Theoretical Lens of Analysis ................................................................................................. 15 Attempting a Movement ............................................................................................................ 16 Challenges of the Archive and Historiography ...................................................................... 19 On the Significance of the Turner Fonds ............................................................................... 26 iv Social and Academic Significance ......................................................................................... 29 Study Delimitation ................................................................................................................. 30 CHAPTER TWO: Grounding CCF Drama in Theatrical and Political Contexts ........................ 33 Global Workers’ Theatre Movements ....................................................................................... 33 Early Rumblings of the Workers’ Theatre Movement .......................................................... 35 British Workers’ Theatre Movement ..................................................................................... 39 American Workers’ Theatre Movement ................................................................................ 54 Canadian Political Context .................................................................................................... 76 Canadian Amateur Theatre and Workers’ Theatre ................................................................ 80 Progressive BC History as Context ........................................................................................... 97 Pre-World War I .................................................................................................................... 98 The Great Depression and Relief Efforts ................................................................................ 105 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 111 CHAPTER THREE: Arthur J. Turner and the South Hill CCF Club ......................................... 112 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 112 Arthur J. Turner ....................................................................................................................... 114 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and The Great Money Trick ..................................... 122 Boys of the Old Brigade .......................................................................................................... 146 A Story of the Simia, or The Monkey Rebels ......................................................................... 167 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 175 CHAPTER FOUR: Thorvald “Denny” Kristiansen and the Cooperative Commonwealth Youth Movement ................................................................................................................................... 179 v Denny Kristiansen ................................................................................................................... 179 The Cooperative Commonwealth Youth Movement .............................................................. 182 Big Business by Thorvald “Denny” Kristiansen ..................................................................... 189 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 202 CHAPTER FIVE: Hubert Evans and the Roberts Creek CCF Club .......................................... 205 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 205 Hubert and Anna Evans ........................................................................................................... 209 Contextual Works .................................................................................................................... 211 Evans and the Roberts Creek CCF Club ................................................................................. 217 You Can’t Tell Me by the Roberts Creek CCF Club .............................................................. 219 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 233 CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 235 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 248 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Plays Found in the Arthur J. Turner Fonds, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections ................................................................................................................ 14 Table 2: Comparison of the Original
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