Читать книгу Re: Producing Women's Dramatic History - D.A. Hadfield - Страница 18

1. Indeed, the trend towards commissioning playwrights to adapt existing works rather than create new plays can be viewed as a result of the financial imperative in theatre that functions as “a certain creative ‘self-censorship’ imposed on writers and practitioners by the need to produce commercially viable plays” (Goodman 90).

2. Michael Devine, in his article, “Tarragon: Playwrights Talk Back,” argues that Tarragon has not, in fact, “earned” its reputation as “one of the most important new play development opportunities for promising young playwrights in Toronto, if not Canada” (13), a verdict almost unanimously supported in sidebar articles written by playwrights who had participated in various Tarragon Playwrights Units workshops. Citing problems attendant on Kareda’s position of absolute personal and artistic control of the process, and his potential conflict of interest in needing to encourage scripts appropriate for Tarragon productions, Devine outlines alternative processes of new play development being practiced in Montreal, Edmonton, and Vancouver. However, Devine is quick to point out that these alternative development processes, while useful for developing non-literary productions, have not garnered the type of funding that would allow them to rival Tarragon in reputation.

3. A letter from Toronto Free Theatre directors to TFT’s Preview Club members documents the reviewer-audience dynamic with respect to their previews of George F. Walker’s Power Plays. Martin Kinch and Judith Hendry explicitly lay the blame for the failure of Gossip and the potential failure of Filthy Rich on bad reviews:

It’s happened again. We’ve presented what we think is a fine, amusing production of an exciting new play by George F. Walker, and the critics of two Toronto papers have turned in a verdict that’s not very flattering.

We might be inclined to listen—if it hadn’t already happened like this before. Filthy Rich is a sequel to Gossip, a play we presented back in 1977. Gossip wasn’t very well attended—and we had to close it early. One of the reasons was the press coverage.. . .

What’s going on here? This time around, the critics can hardly ignore Walker’s growing international reputation. But they still refuse to pass the kind of verdict that might help give this play the long Toronto run it deserves.. . . We don’t quite understand the problem. But we do know that the attitude of the critics is going to keep a lot of people away from an entertaining and rewarding evening in the theatre.. . .

4. According to Filewod (Collective 116), it was in large part the frustration over having to reinvent the wheel with every production that led to the eventual dissolution of the Mummers Troupe in Newfoundland.

5. It must be remembered that the preference for collective work is by no means universal. Margaret Hollingsworth, a playwright of ardently feminist inclinations, supports the necessity of opportunities for women to work without entering a collective structure. Acknowledging that a woman-run theatre company is, by definition, “outside the system,” she expresses dissatisfaction with the lack of diversity in the margins: “[T]here is only one professional woman’s theatre in English Canada that I know of and its members, for reasons of mutual support and growth, have chosen to work mainly collectively. (Many women’s theatres have taken this route, and it leaves women who wish to develop their craft in some other way with few alternatives.)” (26)