In the late sixties in Canada, the emerging alternative theatre adapted dramaturgical models, many of them from the international countercultural movement of the period, which served as means of challenging the primacy of the playwright and of creating a new decentralized iconography of the Canadian people. In the process of doing so, however, this theatre left many colonialist practices unexamined, and effectively succeeded in disseminating nationalist or centralizing mythologies of utopian populism. Thus, the suppressive effects of colonialism were ironically prolonged as the new nationalist theatre continued to produce marginalizing effects. This study reframes critical perspectives on contemporary theatrical values and practices in Canada by revisiting the ways in which colonialist representation inscribed subordination and marginality in the first place. Since 1980, there has been a significant subversion and effacement of nationalist ideology by the very groups which had been suppressed by the universalizations of populism. In addition, the adoption by many practitioners of decentred, postmodern textuality combined with experimentation in interdisciplinary techniques has created performance modes more adaptable to cultural reality. In Canadian theatre of the nineties, it has become common practice to historicize unitary narratives of culture and self-identity and to construct, instead, intercultural texts which acknowledge the co-presence of universality and difference, and which assist in drawing spectators with diverse cultural expectations into communal experience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/10363 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Sherlow, Lois Juanita. |
| Contributors | Bossiere, Camille La, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 352 p. |
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