Patrick Langston writes: Isn’t the play the thing after all?

Published on: April 27, 2015
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

NOTE: This opinion by Patrick Langston does not  represent the opinion of the CCC site as a whole. A.R.

Maybe it’s time we just got the show on the road.

If you’re a habitué of English live theatre in Ottawa, you may be as fed up as are some other audience members by the conventions that, on opening nights, precede the moment actors actually take the stage.

Those conventions involve words of welcome, and usually not just a few, by an artistic director or other representative. The chats almost never offer insight into the show and, with the odd exception, have become so generic as to be meaningless.

At the National Arts Centre, the welcome extends to recognition of Algonquin Elder Annie Smith St. George and her family when they are in the audience. She has helped guide NAC English Theatre’s fostering of Indigenous programming. Also recognized is the fact that the NAC is on “unceded Algonquin territory.”

 

The practice was introduced by NAC English Theatre’s former artistic director Peter Hinton as part of his laudable programming of Aboriginal theatre. To question it may seem mean-spirited, if not worse, especially with the spectre of missing and murdered aboriginal women still pounding at our door and the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada due to end this June with the publication of its final report.

And while such acknowledgements are reportedly not part of the dance, orchestral or French theatre seasons at the NAC, the institution’s director of communications and public affairs Rosemary Thompson says they have accompanied events like 2013’s Northern Scene with its Indigenous focus. They also occur at institutions like the National Museum of History.

NAC English Theatre’s managing director Nathan Medd says in an email that on the west coast where he’s from such recognitions are increasingly common at public events in areas where no treaties exist.

Thompson says there were recognitions at the first and last shows of this season in which the English Theatre’s Ensemble performed, and “If (Smith St. George) happens to be in the audience, they do it. It’s like a protocol thing.”

So what’s the issue?

Mostly that it’s become pro forma. Words are spoken, clapping and whistling erupt from the audience, and we move on, maybe feeling a bit better about ourselves in the process. Whether anything changes is doubtful.

And if nothing much changes, why do it?

Thompson says she’s heard no audience complaints about the practice, but Iris Winston, a veteran theatre-goer and former community theatre critic for the Citizen, terms it “over the top.” Based on the grumbling I and others have heard about the practice, one suspects she speaks for less forthcoming fellow audience members when she says: “It’s perfectly reasonable to recognize once that we’re on Algonquin territory but not time after time … you’re there to be entertained by a play.”

That’s also the problem with introductions generally. We’re there for the show, and preambles, which can include a nod to sponsors, deflect attention from what we’re about to see.

Eric Coates, artistic director of the Great Canadian Theatre Company and a gifted public speaker, says his opening-night introductions are done primarily because “it’s part of the agreement with individual sponsors … it’s a chance for them to be seen as philanthropists in the community.”

Pointing out that introductions are standard in many Canadian theatres, he says he gets some “good-natured, what could almost be seen as complaints,” but that people generally accept the need to thank sponsors.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so accepting. After all, don’t most of us donate, proportionate to our means, to all sorts of good causes without expecting the glow of the public spotlight? And aren’t sponsors already recognized in the programs?

A final consideration, and one not restricted to opening nights: shows, and they’re legion, that don’t start on time. It’s a problem that afflicts in particular independent theatre where laissez-faire lateness sometimes seems equated to coolness. But it also plagues the big boys.

In many cases, late-arriving audiences are to blame. Coates says those tardy arrivals may be a result of our increasingly “last-minute society.”

Call annoyance over late starts obsessive if you want, but keeping actors and crew members waiting is in fact disrespectful to the self-discipline and hard work that’s at the heart of good theatre. It’s also disrespectful to ourselves as audience members who are about to engage with that self-discipline and work.

So how about we skip the preliminaries and dive into the reason we’re there?