Chong Is Wrong
Joshua Chong, the Toronto Star’s chief theatre critic, recently wrote a think piece with the headline “Canada must not freeze out American artists as Donald Trump attacks cultural institutions.”
It was written in response to the “scores” of letters and comments he has received from people who think that Canadian theatres should stop producing American plays and “focus exclusively on works by Canadian artists.”
As an American who advocates for Canadian theatre – the tag line for this site after all is “Chronicling A Love Affair With Canadian Theatre” – I completely agree with those folks.
Chong, however, believes that Canadian theatre companies should continue to produce American works because, among other things, “many of the American works we’re seeing on this side of the border this season are, essentially,
unwelcome in the U.S.” Poppycock!
To bolster his claim, he cites two works by African Americans – Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders and Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness.
While it’s true that Ohio State Murders is unlikely to receive a command performance at the White House to say it’s unwelcome on American stages is simply not true.
The play has been produced by some major U.S. companies, including the Yale Rep, and was mounted on Broadway in 2022. True, the Childress play has been described as a “seldom-produced masterpiece,” but that sad moniker applies to a long list of works by many playwrights.
Chong cites a number of outrages being perpetrated on the arts in my home country, all of them reprehensible. But to suggest that Canadians mounting American plays will somehow right those wrongs (Chong suggests as much but doesn’t specify) is delusional.
Chong says “[p]latforming works of art from abroad doesn’t threaten our Canadian cultural identity.” Well maybe, unless it serves to completely erase Canadian cultural identity.
Consider this: Since 2011 the Shaw Festival has produced ten plays by Black American playwrights, plus this season’s work-in-progress by Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins.
In that same period guess how many plays by Black Canadian playwrights Shaw has produced. If you guessed “zero” give yourself a pat on the back. (True, Lisa Codrington adapted a Shaw short story in 2016, but that hardly counts.)
Not so incidentally, Shaw’s ignoring Black Canadian playwrights puts its Black ensemble members in the odd position of never getting to play characters (at least at Shaw) that mirror their own lived experience as Black Canadians.
It’s as if the powers that be at Shaw had never heard of Djanet Sears, George Elliott Clarke, Andrew Moodie, Trey Anthony, Lorena Gale, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Amanda Parris, Marcia Johnson, or Kanika Ambrose, to name but a few.
That’s just one reason to stand with those who are demanding fewer (or no) American plays, and more Canadian content.
There are others.
It needs no ghost come from the grave, let alone a Yank like me, to tell us that Canada is in an existential struggle with the Great Satan to the south. At the moment, that battle is largely economic. (I’m not altogether sanguine that that will continue to be the case, but let’s hold a good thought.)
Ghastly as this situation is it has had the salutary effect of encouraging Canadians to take a long hard look in the frosty mirror and ask some important questions about what it means to be Canadian.
As a foreigner it is not my place to delve more deeply into that. I will simply refer my American readers to Gloves Off.
One immediate effect of that self-examination has been a widespread boycott of American products, most noticeable here in Ontario by the disappearance of American wine and spirits from the LCBO (which I still think should stand for Let’s Crack a Bottle Open).
Chong is quite right to say that theatre is not a commodity. But it is a product, one that involves Canadian dollars flowing south so that Canadian consumers can enjoy it.
If Canadian consumers can signal their anger by eschewing Kentucky bourbon, why not plays? After all, a persuasive argument can be made that a bottle of good bourbon provides at least as much solace for the soul as a night at the theatre!
I for one see no problem in cutting off the flow of theatrical rights payments to America, at least until the current trade war has been equitably settled. Let’s say for the sake of argument that tomorrow Canada cancelled all pending productions of American plays and stopped scheduling new ones.
If the American theatre community noticed, which is by no means a sure bet, maybe they’d respond by . . . well how?
Perhaps American theatre companies would produce more Canadian plays as a way of demonstrating solidarity with their Canadian sisters and brothers. Maybe they’d be encouraged to join their voices of protest with those of American farmers, construction companies, and many others who are feeling the economic pain from Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic tariffs.
Since this trade war is largely about reciprocity, it’s worth noting that there is a vast trade deficit for Canada when it comes to plays. Maybe it’s time to address that, or at least recognize that it exists.
Now granted, not producing American plays might be seen as a pathetically small gesture economically. The amount of money involved must be laughably small compared to other sectors.
It might also be painful. Think of all the budget-boosting money Shaw and Stratford bring in by producing hit American musicals! But there are English musicals, even (perish the thought) Canadian musicals to take their place. There’s also, although it pains me to mention it, Les Mis, which is of French origin and a virtually guaranteed money maker.
Whatever the negative effects might be I think a boycott of American plays would fall far short of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Politically, the move would speak volumes. This just might be the moment for Canadian theatre to make a noble gesture.
There is a vast wealth of theatrical talent in this country. I feel privileged to have been able to savour it for lo these many years and I wish nothing more than to see Canadian theatre flourish and enjoy the respect it deserves on the other side of the Poutine Curtain.
I should also mention that I have great respect for Joshua Chong. As a critic I find myself agreeing with him more often than not. On this point, however, I beg to differ.
[image: Toronto Star]
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