Practically since its celebrated premiere in 1967, George Ryga's drama about urban Native
Canadians, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, has enjoyed canonical status in Canada. Yet the same three decades
that have seen over 200 productions of Rita Joe have also witnessed radical transformations in the ways
First Nations' peoples are represented, heard and perceived in Canada. How has a play written about
Natives by a non-Native man in 1967 managed such a long production history on such contentious and
unstable ground? How do identity politics influence this piece of theatre, and how does the theatre shape
identity politics?
As popular notions about Native identities have changed and as Native people continue to represent
themselves in and put of court, and on and off the stage, this play about Native people in Canada has been
performed and re-performed. But the directors, the venues, the actors, the costumes and sets, the language
itself and (most significantly) the resulting characterizations have changed over the years — in subtle and
rather dramatic ways. While the words and the fundamental plot of Rita Joe have remained the same, its
messages about Native identity has evolved since 1967, in relation to social, political, economic, and
cultural changes. Indeed, historical developments impact the particular ways an "Indian" is
represented in a particular time; what makes a "real Indian" tends to shift with the political and
social needs of the moment. This paper examines the way Native identity is represented in eight
productions of Rita Joe mounted between 1967 and 1992, creating a production history that focuses on the
relationship between representations of identity and particular moments in time and space and, ultimately,
discerns a complex and symbiotic relationship between the aesthetic, creative world and the historio-political
world. Perhaps most remarkably, the play stretches to accommodate diverse cultural narratives,
gathering meaning from the identity politics of its particular performance place and time.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10672 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Krueger, Colleen |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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